


Tap my shoulder, hold my hand

by bellofthetolppl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, References to Depression, aurora is alive and not bad okay, but also REAL SOFT BELLARKE, but also WHUMP really, college student!Clarke, cowboy!bellamy, i gotta warn this is LOTS OF WHUMP, it's whumpy pls know that, okay so bellamy is really hurt and clarke is there to help him, same with jake, they are real soft and cuddly and in love but not yet saying that out loud, young octavia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 64,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22071625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellofthetolppl/pseuds/bellofthetolppl
Summary: Bellamy Blake used to be one of the most popular bull riders in the state, winning rodeos and competitions whenever he went until a terrible injury put him down and now he has to get used to a new way of living. Thankfully, he has his best friend Clarke Griffin by his side no matter what.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 62
Kudos: 159





	1. Caught me by the collar at the graveside

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I started this fic more or less as a joke, something to write for myself because I love writing hurt/comfort and whump. Then I never deleted it and instead kept writing till I finished it at 62k. 
> 
> I should warn that I kept telling everyone this is a cowboy Bellamy fic but in fact it is more about him dealing with the consequences of a serious injury and how his life has been completely turned upside down. 
> 
> There's lots of whump, many times he's hurt and she's there for him but also lots of softness and sweet moments. 
> 
> I'll post it in two big parts.
> 
> This first one is kind of heavier so please read the tags. There's references to Depression so if you don't feel like reading something too sad this may not be the fic for you. There's also angst but also SOFTNESS.
> 
> Anyway, for more questions you can find me @jasperjoordan on tumblr.
> 
> Also Happy New Year to you all!

Bellamy knew he shouldn’t go to the Griffin ranch and train their horses, he knew he shouldn’t leave Octavia home when their mother was at work and most of all he knew, he shouldn’t be riding, not with a metal plate in his head, holding it all together, not when the last time the doctor clearly instructed him to take it easy.

But he was Bellamy Blake, the most famous bull rider in the state and he’d be damn if he gives up who he is because of a metal plate in his big thick head.

“Stay inside and watch TV till I come back, okay, O?” he kisses his sister’s head and puts on his black cowboy cap.

“Where are you going?” she asks worriedly looking up.

“Just to do some groceries.”

“But you got no money.”

“Yeah, I do. Now watch your cartoon and keep quiet, alright?”

“You’re going to ride again, aren’t you?” she sits up on the couch, in all her nine year old glory, angry and ready to fight him, she jumps off and rushes to the door, spreading her arms away and blocking his way.

“Bell, please don’t!”

“Move, O.”

“Bellamy, please! Mom will be mad.”

“Mom’s not the boss of me, now come on, let me go and I’ll take you with me tomorrow so you can ride Moreen.”

“Bell-”

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” he leans down to kiss her forehead and she finally relents, moving away. He leaves, closing the door of their small house with a thud and jumping in his old truck.

When he gets to the Griffins, Clarke is already riding Moreen around in her typical princessy way, looking all high and mighty in her brand new plaid and her white cowboy hat. Moreen is a good horse, she listens to her and with the help of Bellamy, she’d be winning Clarke all the rodeos next year not that she would ever admit it.

“What are you doing here?” Clarke jumps off Moreen when he makes his way in the dusty circle.

“I’m training Stubborn today.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Bellamy, your mother told my father that you shouldn’t be tiring yourself out.”

“I’m fine. And since when do you care?”

“I don’t want you dropping dead on our property”

“Now that’s more like you, princess.” he smiles and she watches him head for the barn. 

A minutes later he’s taking Stubborn, their beautiful and newly acquired black stallion out and dragging him inside the circle just as she takes out Moreen.

Clarke liked watching Bellamy work as much as she knew that it made him self-conscious and sometimes cockier than usually. 

At first he’d know she’s there, staring but then he’d completely get consumed by the action of training the horse. 

It’s like he could talk to Stubborn, who by the way was a horrible horse, he was angry and impulsive, he kicked and struggled against his rains but Bellamy wouldn’t give up. 

She smiled as he watched him tame Stubborn, sweat covering his entire back and forehead. Seeing as he got quite tired, she decided to go inside and get the idiot some water.

She’s known Bellamy Blake since she was nine years old when he first came by the ranch with his mother. They were poor, asking her dad if he needed help with the horses, Bellamy, she claimed, could do anything and even though he was young he was strong. 

Jake Griffin had known Aurora from school, he was aware how hard it was for her provide for her children, she had just given birth to a little girl a year ago. Her husband, Bellamy’s father, had died a few years after he was born and no one talked about it, but they knew Octavia’s father was just some random guy who was passing by and stayed in the area for a few months before leaving her the minute he found out she was pregnant. 

So Jake had hired Bellamy and he proved to be of great help. It wasn’t only that he cleaned the barns, fed and brushed the horses or helped out on the field. It’s like he could talk to them.

He grew up to become one of the best horse trainers in town, if not the area but he also was a really good bull rider as much as she hated to admit it. 

Their relationship was strained sometimes, they always bickered and pretended to hate each other but there was an understanding between them, there was, at the core of it, friendship.

When two months ago Jake got a call that Bellamy had fallen off the bull really bad and was in the hospital, they had driven there and stayed with the Blakes all night long. 

Clarke remembers how scared she was when the doctors told Aurora that he might not make it through the night. 

She thinks back to how embarrassed Aurora was to accept money for the hospital bills, money her father had to practically shove in her hands. 

She remembers how weak Bellamy was when he woke up, all pale, eyes disoriented, groaning from the pain. 

She can see it clear as day even now how Octavia basically threw herself in his embrace and cried because she thought she’d lost him. 

His mom and her dad had left then to talk to the doctor and Octavia had dosed off. Clarke was the only one standing and she had carefully walked to the bed and took his cold hand in hers. 

God, he really looked like he was barely alive. 

The bull hadn’t just thrown him off, he had stomped all over him-he had broken ribs, internal bleeding, a dislocated shoulder, his leg was in pieces, but the worst of it was of course, his head.

“Hey” she remembers saying. He opened his eyes just barely and gave her a smile.

“Hey” he had said barely above a whisper.

“That thick head of yours looks even bigger now.” she attempts at joking and he smiles.

“Didn’t you hear-I have metal brains now, Griffin. I’m a robot. Gonna kick your ass out there on the field when we’re riding your horses.”

“Shut up, it’s just a metal plate.”

“Still cool as hell, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure you’re gonna get all the ladies in bed with that sick scar.”

“I have so many threesomes ahead of me, don’t I?” she laughs and almost punches his shoulder when she remembers how hurt he is.

“God, your ego is even bigger now, how are we going to breathe around you?”

“Am I hearing this right or is Clarke Griffin admitting to me finally taking her breath away?”

“Oh shut up!” he smiles but winces at the effort and Octavia stirs in his arms. 

This can’t be comfortable for him, his entire body was on fire and then he had his little sister sprayed on top of him, but still he wouldn’t say a thing. He always was like that, the ass.

“You okay? Want me to get the nurse?”

“I’m fine.” he says a minute late through gritted teeth, clearly in pain. She squeezes his hand and he opens his eyes again “I’ll be out there kicking your ass before you know it.”

“Whatever you say, Blake” she rubs her thumb over his hand and he relaxes back into the pillow. She still calls the nurse and she has to watch them check his dilated pupils out and give him shots after shots of painkillers so he could sleep because he needed the rest.

But he made it, just barely, but he did and now all he had to do is sit back and rest and not be a goddamn idiot.

Except here he was.

She fills the glass with cold water from the fridge before heading outside and finding him almost succeeding in climbing up on Stubborn. 

He did this thing where he first let him get used to his presence, so he’d let Stubborn sniff him, eat his shirt,lick his face, his hair, he had gotten used to Bellamy in the past few weeks since Bellamy finally got back to his feet and started coming over here again. 

It was true her father paid him to train their horses and she knew they needed the money but both Bellamy and Aurora had been repeatedly reassured that his place is secured and he should take as much time as he needs to recover.

Of course, he didn’t listen.

Now she was watching as he jumped on Stubborn’s back and then off on the ground again, repeating the motion over ten times. 

First jumping on, just with his torso-his chest, his stomach on him, then jumping off. 

At first Stubborn was well…being stubborn, trying to throw him off,and protesting at every action but Bellamy kept talking and doing the same thing over and over until Stubborn wasn’t trying to kick him off anymore.

This was also, of course, extremely tiring for Bellamy, who should be back at home lying on his couch.

“Hey, how about a break?” she raises the glass in his direction and he pats Stubborn’s muzzle before heading to her. 

He was soaked and she could see his breathing is uneven, too uneven for a person who was exercising, he was red faced and his bad hand shook. 

After the accident, they told him he won’t be able to use his left like before, his fingers would paralyze often, sometimes he’d catch on something and not be able to release it-a glass, the reins, even the steering wheel, or sometimes he wouldn’t be able to make it clench and hold tight-it was a fucked up thing either way and now that he caught her staring at him, he hurried to shove it in his jeans pocket and take the glass from her with his good hand. 

He also dragged his leg which seemed to pain him every time he took a step and the problem was he couldn’t hide that one at all.

“You know it’s too hot outside now for this? Catch a break, you can do this later.”

“I’m good.”

“Bellamy!”

“Clarke-”

“Dear god, why do you have to be so goddamn idiotic all the time.”

“I’m tired of having the same fight with everyone!” he cuts her off and shoves the empty glass back in her hand “If you’re here to stop me,just save your breath and get back to your pretty horse riding and your trophy room, princess!”

“You’re unbelievable!” she throws her hands in the air before heading back inside angrily. 

Goddamn him, if he wants to die, then so be with it, she couldn’t deal with his stupidity. 

She headed upstairs to her room and she tried to forget about it but she just couldn’t-a million other things came to mind, how he isn’t just doing this to himself, but to his sister and his mother, how she couldn’t bear to watch him kill himself because liked it or not, they were friends and she refused to lose him, moreover this was so selfish of him, doing this because he just had to feed into his own stupid belief that he had to be this big tough man who never let no injury drag him down or set him back. 

She had already her the other boys in the area talk about him singing up for a bull ride and she would be damned if she let him do this. Only over her dead body!

She was rushing downstairs to give him that entire speech that she had just so carefully thought of when she saw him leaving the barn and she smiled victoriously for having caught him just in time when he was done with Stubborn. 

She practically jumps down the stairs and rushes to him when she sees him sway. She stops dead in her tracks confused for a moment and then he takes another step.

And he sways again.

He reaches out for the door of the barn, trying to find something to hold onto but he misses it by an inch and collapses on the ground.

“Bellamy!” she yells and runs to him “Bellamy!” she kneels by his side and takes his head in her hands, shaking it just a bit “Bellamy, come on, wake up! Shit! Bellamy come on, don’t do this to me now!” he opens his eyes and she can see he’s clearly barely holding on to consciousness, his eyes are dizzy and he’s gritting his teeth-he’s in pain. It makes her want to punch him in the face all over again except she can’t cause he’s fucked up.

“God, I want to kick your ass so badly right now.”

“I’m fi-” he tries to sit up but he groans and falls right back on the dusty ground. 

She carefully slips her arms under his back and moves him up a bit. He groans again and his face falls to the side, his nose touching her stomach. He raises his hand and covers the side of his head, the bad one.

“Talk to me, what hurts?”

“Nothing…just…give me a minute.”

“Bellamy, now is not the time to play hero, just talk to me or I swear to god I’m driving you to the hospital!”

“No hospitals! Just give me a minute, I…I just need a minute, I can get up” the way he was talking made her think this wasn’t the first time so she furrows her eyebrows and tightens the grip on his arm.

“Bellamy, has this happened before?” he just groans in response and closes his eyes again.

“Just..a minute,okay? Please, Clarke. No hospitals.” she sighs and holds him there, thinking how this just won’t do. 

Her father must still be in the house, all she had to do was call him out as there was no way for her to lift Bellamy’s bulky body up. 

But still, for Bellamy’s dignity she gives him another minute.

“You chose a really shitty timing to have a Victorian crisis, Bell” he chuckles quietly but winces again and opens his eyes with determination. 

He tries to sit up but he barely makes it half way before he grabs his head again and sways violently.

“Okay, that’s it. Hold on, I’m getting my father.”

“No, Clarke-” but she was already up running inside, calling for her dad. 

Barely a minute later they come back to him still struggling to raise himself up on his elbows, but Jake Griffin carefully and swiftly shoves one arm under his and the other under his knees and carefully lifts him up.

“What the hell happened?”

“He passed out.”

“I’m-”

“If I hear one more time how _FINE_ you are, I’m going to drag your ass through the dusty ground and kick you till you can’t spell your name.”

“He can’t spell his name now as it is” Jake says and there’s a certain anger in his voice. 

He had always cared about Bellamy, they’ve grown fond of each other, especially with Bellamy not having a father figure in his life. 

The night he got hurt, Jake had been as worried and mad as Aurora and he kept going around pestering the doctors for information even though they kept telling them it will be hours before he got out of surgery.

“Come on, in my room.” Clarke opens up the doors for her father who carefully places Bellamy on her bed.

“What hurts?” Jake asks sitting by his side and taking his hand. 

Bellamy closes his eyes again and just shakes his head, it seems that he’s in a lot of pain, his breathing was labored and he looked pale but he kept wiggling his body, trying to move. 

Except he couldn’t, or at least he couldn’t move everything-his left leg was lifeless and his right hand was stuck close to his body twisted in a weird angle.

“Dad” Clarke says quietly, worriedly.

“I’ll call Nyko.” Jake nods with determination and gets up.

“No, I don’t want to-” Bellamy protests through his delirium barely opening his eyes.

“You don’t get to fight me now, young man!” Jake scolds again “None of this would’ve happened if you had just sit and got rest.”

“Dad” Clarke shakes her head, now was not the time to fight. Jake sighs and heads out to call the local doctor while Clarke takes her father’s place by Bellamy’s side. 

She takes his lifeless hand in hers and squeezes it gently, afraid that probably everything hurt him right now.

“My leg’s numb” Bellamy says through teeth.

“You’ll be fine, Nyko will fix it.”

“Don’t tell my mom.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Clarke!”

“I don’t give a shit, Bellamy, someone needs to stop you and the next time you do something stupid you refuse to listen to us, I’ll tie you up to a tree and leave you out there in the middle of nowhere if I have to.”

He sighs and she can see him swallow hard but then he smiles, that familiar stupid smirk of his and she knows he’s about to say something stupid.

“Kinky princess.”

“Oh, shut up.” she stands up just when Jake comes back.

“Nyko will be here in ten minutes. He was mad.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“You want some water?” Jake asks coming on his other side and sitting down. Bellamy shakes his head and Clarke can see he’s succumbing back to unconsciousness. 

Jake squeezes his shoulder before heading back to the living room where she can hear him calling Aurora who judging by what she can overhear, just came home from work and found Octavia home. 

Jake convinces her everything’s going to be alright and that Nyko will be here any minute, he promises her they got this and they’ll drive Bellamy back home tomorrow.

“It must’ve been the sun that got him all shaky” she can hear her dad lie “He’ll be fine, Aurora, I promise to call you as soon as Nyko checks on him. Okay, tell O goodnight from us.”

Nyko comes right on time, finding Clarke worriedly brushing a streak of red blood coming from Bellamy’s nose. 

He wakes him up and starts examining him. Half an hour later, after both Clarke and Jake can hear him scolding Bellamy, he closes the door of the room with his medical bag in hand and rubs his forehead tiredly.

“Is he okay?”

“He needs to rest. His blood pressure’s off the charts and the better part of his left body is as if on fire.”

“He’s in pain?” Clarke asks worriedly and Nyko gives her a knowing smile.

“I gave him a shot, he is out now, should be until tomorrow.”

“What happened?”

“What happened is he overtired himself. He should be home resting, not training horses and riding bulls. I know some days it feels to him as if he can conquer the world and it’s all back to normal but it takes one push and he can kiss walking and even talking goodbye. With a head injury like that, he can die. He knows that, I told him so in the hospital.”

“Not that he listens.”

“He never does,Clarke. I thought you guys would be smarter than that, not let him do this to himself.”

Before Clarke could say anything else her dad intervenes.

“Have you tried stopping this boy? He wouldn’t be talked out of anything if he’s set his mind to it.”

Nyko rubs his forehead again and follows them to the door.

“Just call me if you need anything else okay? He should stay in bed for the next couple of days.”

“I doubt that would be an easy conversation for Aurora.” Clarke remarks and Nyko gives her a knowing smirk.

“You should help her then. He listens to you.”

“So much that he passed out today with me there.”

They send him off and Clarke goes back to Bellamy’s room. Even if he’d just be sleeping, she wanted to be there so she decided to do some studying while he was out. 

She had to cram for her Biology exam so she sat on a chair next to him and propped her legs on her bed. 

A couple of times he stirred and woke but just briefly. He was pretty delusional but asked for some water and then passed out again mumbling something under his nose that she couldn’t quite make out.

At around nine her dad brought her dinner.

“Doubt we’d be able to wake him up to eat, huh?” he asks still with concern and pulls the blanket up Bellamy’s chest in a fatherly way before brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. 

He loved him like his own kid and sometimes because of her own feelings, Clarke tend to forget that Bellamy mattered as much to her dad as he did to her.

When her mother left them when Clarke was just fourteen, Bellamy had stayed in their house for a week, making sure she’s fine but because Jake was in such a bad shape, being heartbroken and all, Bellamy basically ran the ranch. 

He did all the manual work, came there right after school, sometimes with Octavia, sometimes alone and stayed until everything was done. 

He fed the horses, watered their crops, even cooked them dinner and it wouldn’t be until nine that he finally passed out on their really uncomfortable couch with Clarke eating pop corn and binge watching sit coms right next to him. 

He didn’t have to do all that, Jake paid him for the horses and nothing else, but he didn’t care. 

When one time Clarke asked him why he simply shrugged and said.

“It’s my job.”

“No it isn’t. You don’t have to take care of us.”

“You took me in when I was nine, gave me a job when we barely had enough to eat. Your father’s not just my employer Clarke, he’s my family. You’re my family.” she had smiled and teared up and he had hugged her, it was their first hug. 

Bellamy wasn’t great with expressing emotions and letting someone comfort him though she had seen how gentle and loving he was with Octavia, he had never extended the same courtesy to her. 

Until then. 

After she fell asleep in his arms like that and woke up weirdly spread all over him on the couch, that awkwardness disappeared. 

He’d squeeze her hand in support when she needed it, hug her when she was sad, even braid her and Octavia’s hairs and he developed the annoying habit of pushing plates full of food in her hands because she was not eating enough according to him.

“I think he’s too out of it. If he’s hungry later, I’ll get him something.”

“Don’t forget to get some rest too. You got that exam in a couple of days.” he squeezes her arm and kisses her head before leaving them be.

At midnight, he wakes up screaming from a nightmare. She jolts awake and finds him tossing in bed. She grabs his arms and holds him close. He seems so scared.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re safe.”

He breaths heavily and she pulls his head to her chest. It takes him about ten minutes to calm back down and she lies next to him and just holds him, running her fingers through his hair, trying not to think about the way he smells and how soft he is in her arms. 

His tears wet her shirt, she’s not sure he even realizes that he’s crying but after a while he must finally come to his senses because he blushes and pulls away from her.

“Sorry.” he mumbles “I woke you up.”

“It’s okay.” she gives him a reassuring smile but he pulls away completely and rolls over on his good side, with his back to her, still breathing heavily, his lungs making this horrible whistle sound that came to be after the accident.

“You don’t have to hide, Bellamy.” she says gently touching his shoulder but he shrugs her off and she furrows her eyebrows. 

That’s how he was, he would never let anyone see him vulnerable and hurt, he hated it, hated himself for it even. 

Clarke knew that he had nightmares, Octavia had told her so. He often woke up yelling or didn’t sleep at all through the night after the accident.

“He dreams of being thrown off the bull.” O had said sadly “But please don’t tell him I told you. He’ll be mad.”

“I won’t, I promise” Clarke had reassured and though she hadn’t said a word, her heart still broke for him and she wondered how could she make him talk. 

She decided not to push him anymore tonight so she just hugged him from behind, pulled his back to her chest and though he was stiff and cold at first, he eventually relaxed and drifted back to sleep.

She woke up to him gone. When she asked her dad what happened, he said he found a note on the kitchen table saying

_“Jake and Clarke,_

_Thank you for taking care of me. I promise it won’t happen again. Since I am no longer able to fulfill my duties here, I’ll talk to a few guys and send them your way so Stubborn and Moreen can keep in shape._

_-Bellamy”_

* * *

They had no idea how he even found the strength to go behind the wheel and drive home when he was barely functioning last night but when the called Aurora, she said he’s there, sleeping in his room. 

She sounded angry and Clarke concluded she must’ve had a big fight with him so they decided to give them a few more days to figure it all out.

Then after about of a week from complete radio silence by the Blakes, Clarke gets a call in the middle of night and when she sees Aurora’s name flash on her screen, she knows something’s wrong.

“Mrs. Blake?”

“Hey, Clarke, I am so sorry to be calling this late.” Clarke glances at the electronic clock on the bedside drawer and after a few blinks realizes that it says 2:20 am.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Bellamy.” she’s whispering which means Octavia is probably sleeping right now and she’s hiding in the kitchen or outside trying to talk to Clarke without waking her kid up.

“Did he pass out again?”

“It’s not that. He’s been getting drunk almost every night this week and he’s usually home by midnight but it’s been too long and I just…I’m worried that something happened.”

“And you can’t drive and get to him because you’d have to leave O alone.”

“That and he took the truck, which worries me even more. I don’t want him driving when he’s drunk and he has been shaky and not himself all week I don’t know what to do with him anymore. I’ve tried talking to him but he just won’t listen.”

“Okay, I’ll check the places he usually goes to and get him home.”

“Is your father there? I don’t want you doing this alone.”

“He’s out of town for a horse race, but don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“Clarke, I-”

“It’s going to be fine, I promise. I’ll call Miller if I have to.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Trust me I’ll kick his ass back home.” Aurora’s voice trembles when she says goodbye and Clarke gets angrier by the minute. 

She jumps in the truck and heads to town thanking god that there aren’t that many places for him to get drunk at. 

Unless of course he took off somewhere on the outskirts and was drinking on his own or with Miller.

Her first two tries are unsuccessful but on the third she asks the bartender and he points to the corner in an empty booth where he’s asleep on the table.

“Bellamy! Bellamy, wake up!” she grabs his shoulder and shakes him and he jolts up sitting. 

He looks around confused even a little scared until his eyes settle on her and his face falls.

“Oh…Hi, princess.”

“Don’t sound so happy to see me.”

“I’m not” he reaches for his still half full glass of whiskey but she’s faster and she sneaks it away. 

There’s an empty bottle of Jack next to him and judging by the disoriented look in his eyes she knows he’s had too much. 

He shouldn’t even be served but she knows that around here, you can get away with these things especially if you were a well-beloved and known bull rider in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

“You’re not supposed to be drinking, you know that.”

He laughs.

“I’m not supposed to do anything really. Why don’t you and my mother just throw me in a room and lock me up for the rest of my life?”

“Don’t tempt me.” Clarke sits down and he slumps forward, trying to take the cup away from her but she refuses to let him have it so she gulps the whiskey and slams the glass down.

“That was mean.”

“So are you.” he groans and tries to rest his head back on the table but she grabs his shoulder and instead pushes him back so he can lean on the cushions behind him. 

“It’s fine, just give me the speech and go home, princess.” he says, words surprisingly clear though he seems to have been drinking so much.

He and her were always the two people who could drink their friends under the table.

“There will be no speech, I’ve tried talking to you enough and you just won’t listen.” his eyes widen a bit in surprise and confusion “It’s clear that you want to kill yourself, drag your mother and your sister to the ground, destroy everything you’ve ever had and I can’t do anything about it.”

“I-”

“You need help. But you won’t let anyone in. Your pride, that stupid strong male bravado that you tell yourself you have to live up to will destroy you and nobody can do anything to stop it. Not me, not your nine year old sister who considers you her hero, not your mother who’s calling me in the middle of the night worried sick about you after working her ass off all day, not even my father who loves you like a son.”

“Clarke, don’t do this.” he sits up and leans on his elbow, suddenly he doesn’t seem that drunk anymore, suddenly the light in his eyes is not a drunken haze resulting from the alcohol but tears.

“Only you can stop it, Bellamy. But you won’t.”

“What would you have me do?” he raises his voice in frustration and anger but thankfully nobody pays attention to them, the bar is full of people who are already drunk so late into the night and the music is loud. 

“Horse training, bull riding, that is who I am, Clarke! And now suddenly I can’t do these things anymore, I can’t be myself! I can’t support my family, help mom raise O. I can’t even goddamn drive like a normal person! My vision clouds or my head hurts so hard sometimes or my hand won’t hold the wheel and I almost crash somewhere. Let’s not forget I can barely walk some days! I’m fucking useless!”

“No, you’re not!”

“Yes, I am. I’m nothing anymore. I’m a goddamn idiot with a fucking metal plate in his head who passes out from the heat and can’t ride a horse.”

“Stop this.” she grabs his hand and feels her own eyes fill with tears “You can still be useful, you can find a job somewhere.”

“Yeah, where? At wal-mart? At the corner shop? I am not this person, Clarke.”

“You’ll still work for us at the ranch, you just won’t tire yourself so much.”

“It’ll be a pity job and you know it.” he suddenly stands up and sways violently before grabbing the edge of the table and steadying himself. 

She rushes by his other side, grabbing his arm but he shrugs her off and heads for the exit after throwing some money on the table.

For a drunk man he’s surprisingly fast and she has to run to get to him and stand in his way.

“Don’t run away from me. I won’t give up on you.”

“Clarke,cut it off.” he says angrily and tries to pass her by but she puts her hand on his chest and pushes him a little harder.

“No. Do you hear me? I’m not giving up on you.” he stops and stares in her eyes and she feels like for the first time tonight, he actually sees her and hears her “No matter what you do, you won’t push me away.”

“I’m fucked up.” he sounds so broken, so fucking sad her heart skips a beat and she puts her hands on his shoulders. “You should stay away.”

“Not gonna happen.”

He tries to pull away again, tries to hide in his shell but she holds him tight and inches even closer to him. 

It looks like this tiny little blond girl is trying to fight with this big bulky angry and broken guy and it’s not far from the truth.

“Why?” he asks so honestly confused and she tilts her head like she wants to tell him he’s the most stupid idiot in the world.

“Because you’re my family.” _Because I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time now._ she thinks but she doesn’t say, it’s not the time yet anyway 

“Because you know me, you’re my best friend. Because…if this was me, you wouldn’t stop at anything.” he sighs and looks down at his feet in all his drunken glory and he looks like a five year old shy boy who suddenly can’t face the world right now. 

She picks his chin up and gives him a gentle smile.

“Let us help, Bellamy. There’s no shame in asking for it when you need it.”

“I’m not used to it.” he admits and she nods.

“I know. But it’s time you did it.” he looks away again and this time she lets him. 

She takes his bad hand in hers, it’s numb and shaky, she noticed so earlier, but she shows him, she doesn’t care, she grips it tightly and walks him to her truck, helps him get in and put on his seat belt before going to her side and starting the engine.

He falls asleep five minutes later and doesn’t wake up till she gets him home. 

Aurora hears them and jumps outside on the front porch with her nightgown and her long green knitted scarf wrapped around her shoulders. 

Bellamy’s so tired and drunk he’s no longer the fast walker he was when he was trying to run away from her, so he lets his mom shoulder his right side while Clarke puts his left arm over her back and together they make it inside.

“You stubborn boy, you scared the hell out of me” Aurora scolds when they help him to bed.

“Sorry, mom.” he says as Clarke pulls his boots off while Aurora finds a blanket to throw over him.

“What were you thinking, going out like that with the truck? Getting drunk for the fifth time this week!”

“Mom, I-” he’s about to defend himself when he grits his teeth and grabs his head groaning in pain. Clarke sits next to him and reaches for his elbow.

“What is it? Does it hurt?”

“Of course it hurts, he hasn’t taken his pills all week.”

“Mom” he whispers, he can’t even raise his voice now, seemingly so suddenly blindsided by the pain. 

Aurora, though mad, recognizes the plea in his call and reaches out to carefully tuck his hand away from his head. She places her bony hand over his forehead and sighs.

“You’re feverish again. Dammit, Bellamy.”

“Just let me sleep it off.” he moves his head away from her and turns his back to her and towards Clarke, who’s still there kneeling on his bed on the other side. “Just lemme-” the words slur and he closes his eyes. A minute later, he’s already snoring and Aurora tiredly rubs her forehead.

“Hey, I’ll stay with him. Make sure he doesn’t wake up and decide to do something stupid. Or in case that fever gets worse.”

“Thank you, Clarke. For everything.” Bellamy mumbles something under his nose and inches closer to Clarke’s legs. It’s like he could feel her presence there, knew that he had to get closer, even in his drunken state.

* * *

In the morning, she wakes up when he goes to the bathroom to pee and as she expects he plops on the bed right back after it and lets her hug him again. 

The second time she wakes is at noon and he’s still out of it. She kisses his cheek and heads out because she has to go home and finish her last paper and send it before its due.

She wants to come back to the Blakes that night but her dad comes back earlier than expected and he really wants them to have dinner together so she doesn’t get the chance to go by their house until the next morning.

“Clarke!” Octavia welcomes her with a grin and rushes down the stairs to throw herself in her embrace “You brought Moreen!” and indeed she had rode all the way here instead of taking her car, thinking that bringing the horse by might help Bellamy’s mood.

“Hey, O! God, what are you eating? You’re growing by the hour.” Octavia chuckles and climbs off of her to run by Moreen and pet her nose. 

It has always been O’s dream for her to have her own horse and one of the reasons Bellamy has been participating in more and more rodeos before the accident was because he was trying to gather the money for getting her a really beautiful white and brown mare called Furious but he never got to it. 

Moreover, they had to sell his own beautiful black stallion Ares because they were trying to cover the hospital bills, though Jake insisted on paying it all, Bellamy still had his pride and refused to let him cover everything.

“Where’s your brother?” she asks as she ties Moreen to the fence and lets O feed her some carrots she’s hidden in her pocket.

“Inside. Sleeping.” O says and her voice changes.

“Is he okay?” Clarke asks confused, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Yeah.” Octavia shrugs and Clarke rubs her shoulder when she hears another familiar voice coming from behind.

“Clarke!” she finds Aurora Blake standing on the front porch, looking more exhausted than ever but dressed in her work uniform.

“You got another shift at the diner? I thought this was your day off.”

“I have to.” Aurora shrugs and Clarke approaches her, leaving Octavia behind, away from their serious conversation.

“How’s he?” Clarke climbs the stairs and stands by Aurora, hugging herself with her arms. Aurora shrugs and stares at the horizon for a bit.

“He’s been sleeping mostly.”

“Is he in pain?”

“I don’t think it’s that. He’s just…sad. He won’t get up except to go to the bathroom and he sleeps all the time. I managed to make him start on his meds again but he has barely eaten anything.”

“I’ll check on him while you’re gone” Aurora smiles gratefully and squeezes her arm “And maybe I can take Moreen out for a ride, she’s been getting lazy lately.” Clarke says louder and Octavia jumps excitedly.

“Thank you.” Aurora whispers and Clarke can see how tired she looks it makes her heart clench. 

Watching your kid go through what Bellamy did, it couldn’t have been easy on her and yet she persisted, went to work, tried to provide enough for both of them, fought for her son and paid attention to her daughter. She was one of the strongest women Clarke had ever known.

“Octavia be good to Clarke, okay?” she kisses her forehead before she heads to their truck and the younger Blake tries to pull away as if embarrassed for being kissed in front of other people. 

Still, she nods in promise and heads to Clarke.

“Can I ride Moreen, please? Please please please please!”

“Hmmm” Clarke pretends to take her time with it and finally she smiles “Of course. First go grab her some water cause she’s thirsty and I’ll be out in a minute, okay?” Octavia nods eagerly and runs for the bucket while Clarke makes her way inside.

She finds the door to Bellamy’s room open just a crack but still she knocks and announces her presence. 

He doesn’t respond and when she opens it up, she finds him asleep still in the same clothes from last night, a plate with a sandwich and some probably cold tea on the night stand that he hadn’t touched.

Carefully she slips behind him and touches his shoulder.

“Bellamy?” he jumps a little under her touch and she almost feels bad for scaring him but then he rolls on his back and when he sees her face he relaxes into her touch.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, voice hoarse and sleepy.

“Came to check on you and Octavia.” he groans in agreement and his good hand ends up on his bad arm which is probably numb again.

“Mom at work?”

“Just left.” he nods and rolls back on his side, his back to her like he considers the conversation over with but she takes him by the shoulder and rolls him back. She reaches for his forehead but he’s suddenly faster and moves his head away.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking if you got a fever.”

“I don’t.” he keeps trying to pull away from her but she cups his chin.

“You did last night. And remember when we talked about letting us help?” he sighs and falls still beside her, allowing her to put her hand on his forehead which thankfully, is cold.

“Happy?”

“No.” he chuckles and rolls on his side again, hiding from her and pulling the blanket up. This was becoming a habit she really hated.

“You need to eat, Bellamy. You’re taking some pretty strong medication.” he doesn’t say anything to her but his shoulders sag a bit under the blanket and she allows her hand to end up on his arm and rub it gently up and down.

“Want to come outside and watch O ride Moreen?” she asks but he just shakes his head, covers his face with his hand and cuddles closer under the blankets. She sighs and runs her fingers through his curls one last time before she heads outside to give some well-deserved attention to Octavia.

He doesn’t get up for the rest of the day, not even when O comes to his room and tells him all about riding Moreen and watches cartoons with him. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles at her, whispers a “Thank you” at Clarke and falls asleep every hour or so.

When she puts Octavia to bed and goes back to curl up next to him she wraps herself around his body.

“You know you don’t have to figure it all out right away?”

“What do you mean?” it’s the first time he speaks up today.

“You don’t have to find work, you don’t have to tire yourself out. You can take the time to heal, get stronger, feel better. Dad and I will help your mom out.” he nods but she can see him clenching his jaw. 

He doesn’t say anything else, but instead closes his eyes and with that he shows her that he won’t say anything else. 

When he wakes the next morning she’s gone and for once, he’s sad to admit that he is happy about it. He gets up, showers, puts new clothes on and finds his mom and Octavia in the kitchen. 

They both seem surprised to see him and his mom who’s fixing pancakes for his sister, stops abruptly in the middle between the cooker and the table. 

O tilts her head to him and he swallows hard when he realizes how sad she herself looks and his heart clenches at the realization that this is all him-the dark circles under her mom’s eyes, Octavia’s worry and sadness, it was all because of him and the way he has fucked up his life and in result…theirs.

But he won’t do it no more. 

Clarke’s words last night made him realize it-he couldn’t lie around feeling sorry for himself. He had to work. He couldn’t rodeo anymore and he couldn’t train horses but he could still lift heavy things and work hard despite it all. 

Sure he was a bit shaky at times and his hand was numb more often than not but he could work away around it. If not for himself, then for them. If he had to be honest, he didn’t give a damn about himself, but he knew he had to help his mom with O, he had to bring food to the table like he always had. 

This was his purpose in life-he has gotten cockier when he rodeoed, thinking that he was somehow bigger and greater than anyone before him, that he was the best one out there and he had been punished for his selfishness.

He was never more than a simple country worker. He wasn’t Clarke Griffin with her smarts and her college education, her nice horses and big mansion.

He was Bellamy Blake, son of Aurora Blake. He had a high school degree, a beautiful mom who raised him on her own and a sister who he was responsible for.

“Bellamy, you’re up.” Aurora says and he simply nods, grabbing the keys of the truck from the table but not before leaning down to kiss Octavia good morning and steal some bacon from her plate. “Where are you going?”

“To get work.” he says simply and takes his old jacket from the hanger. Aurora follows him quickly behind.

“Are you sure you feel alright? Nyko said-”

“Don’t worry, mom, I won’t be riding horses anymore. I’ll find something I can do.”

“It’s still too early, you only passed out a week ago and you haven’t been taking your meds, so-” he shrugs his jacket and puts his cowboy hat on but not before taking her wrist and squeezing it gently.

“It’ll be fine, mom. I promise. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

He kisses her head too, just like his sister’s and leaves before she can say another word. 

He comes later that night, after dinner time and finds the same worried expression on his mom’s face as he did in the morning. Octavia throws herself in his embrace and he lifts her up, though his arm hurts quite a bit.

“Bell! You’re home!” he kisses her cheek and when she pulls away, she cups his face “Where were you?”

“At work.”

“Found a job?” his mom asks as he carries Octavia to the table and sits with her on one of the chairs while his mom fusses to clean the empty plates.

“There was a free place at the Cage grocery shop.”

“What?” Aurora’s head snaps in his direction “You know those people don’t pay enough but drive their workers to the ground”

“It’s good work and it was the only place that was hiring.”

“I could always ask Kane. He’d take you at the diner, you can help in the kitchen. Or the Griffins, Jake surely knows someone around town who’s hiring and who isn’t Cage.”

“No.”

“Bellamy-”

“Mom, stop it. I’m not going to beg other people for help. The Griffins have done enough and Kane is your employer, he’d be hiring me out of pity because he likes how hard working you are and feels bad for me.”

“That’s not true.”

“I got a job, didn’t I? I’m not drinking and I’m not sleeping around! I’m bringing money to the table, so let’s forget it, okay?” he raises his voice and Octavia jumps in his arms. 

He immediately feels bad so he apologizes and pulls her head to his chest. She closes her eyes and he rocks her up and down.

“Fine, at least have dinner then.” she takes up a free plate to fill for him but he cuts her off and stands up, Octavia still wrapped up around him.

“I’ve already eaten, thanks.” he heads for the living room and she can hear him talk to his sister “So, how was school today, huh?”

* * *

Bellamy keeps working himself to the bone for the next month. 

Every night he comes home, limping a little more, eating a little less, just heading straight to his room and falling asleep.

If it wasn’t for O, who would cuddle next to him in the evening and prod him to talk, he probably wouldn’t have any human contact with anyone. He barely talked to Aurora who also was taking shift after shift at the diner so they had enough to eat.

“I want you to cut down on your hours.” she had told him one night on the rare occasions he actually sat on the dinner table at night. O was watching TV on the couch and was fighting against falling asleep, eavesdropping on their conversation while Bellamy ate the meal his mom had prepared.

Because his mouth is full, he just groans in response and gives her a look that says _“No way!”_

“You’re working too hard. You’re pale and I know your head hurts and you’re in pain.”

“I’m fine,mom. Stop it.”

“You’re not fine! Your arm’s numb even now, isn’t it?” she had noticed how he held it limp in his lap and ate with his good one. A motion which has been repeating for the past two weeks.

“Mom.”

“Bellamy-”

“It’s actually you who need to stop taking extra shifts.” he drops his spoon and takes a sip of the beer he’s taken from the fridge “Or do you think I don’t notice that you’re swaying on your feet early in the morning? That you’ve lost so much weight, you’re barely standing sometimes?”

“I’ve always worked hard, you know that.”

“Not anymore. Now it’s my turn.”

“Bellamy, you can’t.”

“And why’s that,mom?” he stands up now, ready to leave for his room but not before he has the final say.

“Because you’re sick!” her voice breaks and she slaps her hand over her mouth. Before she knows it, her eyes have filled with tears and he freezes on the spot. 

He can hear Octavia sit up on the couch, perking up at that worriedly. His mother rarely showed emotion of this kind. He’s not even seen her cry when his dad died but he does recall her crying when he was barely lucid in the hospital, still too broken and under the influence of drugs but he remembers it. He can see her leaning over him and a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Mom, don’t!” his voice shakes a bit too. 

He can’t watch her do that-he can’t bear seeing her in so much pain for him. 

He didn’t matter. All that ever did was them-her, his sister, rodeoing, making sure they had enough food on the table, that Octavia could go to a decent school, maybe even college. And now that was gone.

“You’re sick and you keep pretending that you’re not. Do you know what it’s like seeing you like this? Worrying every time you leave the house if you’ll come back? Wondering if you’re even ten minutes late, whether you had passed out or died in a ditch somewhere?”

She grips the chair and her knuckles go white so carefully he comes by her side and hugs her just like she did when he was a little boy and woke up from a nightmare. He pushed her head to his chest and stroke it gently while she spilled her tears on his old washed out shirt.

“Mom, I’m fine. I promise that I’m fine.” he reassures her even though his head feels like exploding, even though his arm is barely holding onto his mother’s hunched back and he has to force it to stay there, even though his knee feels like bucking.

“You always say that.”

“I promise, if I feel bad I’ll tell you.”

“Promise?” Octavia’s voice startles him and he moves away from his mom to find her by their side, staring up at them worriedly. Once again guilt overcame his entire being.

He kneels down to pick her up in his arms and kiss her cheek.

“Promise.”

“And you won’t fight anymore, right?” she asks and looks between the two of them. Bellamy nods and his mom follows soon after, coming close again and sandwiching Octavia between them.

“We won’t fight anymore.” Bellamy reassures her with words because he can see O needs it and his mom is still too emotional to talk. “Now go put your PJs on and I’ll read you a story.”

“Okay” she agrees and jumps off his arms. His mom squeezes his arm one last time before she goes to wash the dishes.

“Mom, I got it. Just go rest some, I’ll clean up after I put her to bed.”

“I can-”

“Please.” Aurora sighs, nods and heads to the couch. He can swear he hears her back crack when she finally lays down and the sound makes him clench his fist.

He had to do better. For them.

* * *

Late in the afternoon on a Thursday evening he gets a call at work.

“Bell, O is at the Griffins. We’re swamped at work so I have to stay late in tonight but you gotta pick her up later okay?”

“Why’s she there?” he groans and turns his back to Dax, one of the managers of the place who would surely rat him out to their boss Cage for taking a few minutes off.

“I had nowhere to leave her to and Clarke offered-”

“Mom, we talked about this” he didn’t want to get favors from the Griffins, especially because he’s rarely seen or talked to Clarke since he passed out and they had to call Nyko in to help. Then he felt embarrassed when she dragged him home drunk and took care of his sister for him. Maybe that made more sense as to why he was avoiding her but he was trying hard not to think about it.

“You better swallow down your pride, Bellamy! Clarke’s been a great help with your sister and I had no idea I’d be called in this early to-”

“What do you mean has been a great help? How often does this happen?”

“Just take her home, feed her and put her to bed, will you?” before he can argue she hangs up on him and frustrated he slams the phone on the wall and goes back outside.

“That will cost you fifteen extra minutes, Blake” Dax warns when he picks up a bag of flour to carry inside ignoring the stabbing pain in his shoulder as he does so. 

Whatever he fucked up when he fell, wasn’t just the head. He remembers how when he woke up the doctor told him he has some serious damage on his back, that his leg is in pieces and he’ll need surgery but he had shrugged it all off.

He had broken so many things over the years-his wrist twice, his kneecap, his ribs on multiple occasions, his elbow, both his hips, more dislocated shoulders that he could count, by the end he was popping them back in place himself, not even going to Nyko for it.

He had always bounced back.

Until now.

“Move, Blake!” Dax ordered when he noticed him dragging his leg behind which happened all the time now to the point he was constantly limping and more and more heavily as the day progressed and he put pressure on it.

He ended up staying another extra hour for talking back to Dax which unfortunately for Bellamy, Cage was there to witness. 

By the time he was driving to Clarke’s farm, it was dark outside and he was tired to the bone.

The Wallaces owned a chain of stores in the region and they had new stock coming in every day but they drove their workers to the ground and underpaid them. 

Still, some of the boys Bellamy worked with would pick extra hours, as many as they can and since Bellamy started working for them, Dante, Cage’s father, who had a big ranch and many racing horses and bulls, has been trying to convince him to come train some of them. 

Of course the paycheck there would be at least double if not triple to what he was making as a regular worker but he couldn’t do this to his mom and Octavia. He just didn’t have the heart to.

Moreover, another passing out like at the Griffin’s farm would completely ruin whatever’s left of his pride.

“Bell! Bell, look at me!” his sister yells the moment he steps off the truck. Octavia’s by the fence, feeding Moreen some carrot as Clarke pats her back from inside the ring.

“You’ll get this girl too fat, she wouldn’t want to carry you.” Bellamy says, picking O up and throwing her over his shoulder. Octavia giggles, kicks her feet in the ark and screams for him to let her go.

Finally he does and Octavia bursts into joyous chatter.

“Clarke let me ride her again today.”

“She did?” he meets Clarke’s eyes for the first time and gives her a curt nod in approval.

“Yes, it was so awesome, Bell! And she was so calm and good.”

“Alright, well you can tell me all about it when we got home. Get your stuff and hop in the truck.”

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Clarke asks jumping off the fence and ending up next to him. “Dad’s away and I ordered too much pizza.”

“Pizza,pizza, pizza!” Octavia yells and claps her hands above her head.

“O, no, we should head back, mom’s-”

“Gonna work all night, come home and pass out!” O crosses her arms over her chest and gives him her best look of defiance.

“You could sleepover.” Clarke suggest and Bellamy huffs.

“You don’t like being alone, princess, just admit it.”

“Don’t be rude!” O stomps on his foot and he groans.”I want to stay.” she turns to Clarke “We can send him back home after dinner. He doesn’t eat much anyway.”

“Sounds great.” Clarke ruffles her hair “Why don’t you head inside and put on a movie.”

“I want _The princess and the frog!_ ”

“Okay, then Tiana it is.” O heads to the house before she remembers something and comes back crashing in Clarke, wrapping her arms by the waist, mumbling a quiet _“Thanks”_ before she’s off her feet again.

He swallows hard and tries to shake the thought of seeing his sister genuinely happy for the first time in a while.

“I’m sorry, I just thought she-” Clarke starts making excuses the moment she sees his expression.

“It’s fine, princess.” he cuts her off, takes his cap off, runs his hands through his hair only to put it back on and hide his eyes away from her-a habit he practiced as much as he could when he was anxious.  
“I should head back home, let you guys have some fun and come pick her tomorrow before work.” he turns his back to her so fast she barely has the time to put her hand on his shoulder and stop him.

“Bellamy” she whispers and tightens her grip “Stay. She needs it.” _I need it too_ , she wanted to add, but couldn’t.

He sighs and follows her back to the house. He’s happy she doesn’t say anything about the way he drags his leg or how he struggles to climb the stairs.

Inside O is already on the couch, browsing through Netflix, having changed her mind to _The Lion King_ instead of _The princess and the frog_. 

Clarke thinks it has something to do with the fact that it was her favorite and O was trying to say thanks for convincing her brother to stay.

Bellamy eats a slice of pizza and nurses a beer until he starts dozing off with O’s head in his lap. Clarke can see that even in his dream like state he hurt. 

He’d wince here even groan there and wake up briefly before closing his eyes again and passing out. It repeated for over an hour before Clarke finally stirred him.

“I think we should put her to bed.”

Once he’s placed O on the big bed in Clarke’s guest room, all tucked in and warm, he comes back to the living room which turns out to be empty so he heads to the back porch knowing he’ll find her there.

“I should probably head out.” he says shyly when he finds her drinking whiskey with her notebook in lap, sketching like she loved doing when she occupied this spot.

“Don’t be stupid, Bellamy. You’re staying.” she cuts him off and he doesn’t have the strength to fight her so he just plops on the seat on the other side of the small table and stretches his bad leg.

If she notices him wince, she doesn’t say anything, just like before and it’s starting to unnerve him.

“I know what you’re thinking.” he begins as she keeps sketching without paying much attention to his words.

“I’m not thinking anything as a matter of fact.”

 _“Poor Bellamy”_ he keeps going not paying attention to her words _“He’s barely walking, he can’t take care of his sister, he lets his mother do all the work.”_

“If you think of me like that then you seriously don’t know me, Bellamy.” she finally explodes and slams the notebook on the table “You made it clear that you don’t trust me enough to be around me.”

“What does that mean?”

“You left didn’t you? After you passed out and dad and I tried to help, you just drove off, leaving a stupid note behind.”

“Clarke-”

“Oh, no you had your turn, now it’s mine.” he sinks lower in his seat, feeling like a child that’s about to be severely scolded. “Despite what you may think I consider you my friend, Bellamy. We’ve known each other since we were kids, we’ve helped each other but now you’ve gotten it in your head that you won’t let a single soul be there for you, that you’ll punish yourself till you can’t breathe and pass out in a ditch somewhere.”

“What’s with you and my mother with those ditches?” he groans and she raises an eyebrow.

“If you don’t want me to help, I won’t help. But you got no right coming here and accusing me of what I’m thinking.” she ends her rant and grabs her book so she can keep sketching.

“Fine.”

“Fine” he pours himself a glass of whiskey from her bottle and keeps staring at the distance of the night ahead while her pencil angrily moves on the pages.

They stay like this for a while-he doesn’t know if it’s an hour or maybe more and he’s starting to doze off when she lifts up her head and finally puts her things away.

“There’s a rodeo tomorrow.” she announces and he turns his half-lucid eyes to her. His leg was seriously bugging him so he wasn’t really up to talking right now.

“So?”

“I’m gonna ride and I wanted to bring O with me if you and your mom are okay with that.”

“You haven’t done that in a while are you sure you got it?”

“It’s the summer, I have no classes. I take care of the ranch and rodeo, it’s been like this for the past three years, Bellamy, so yes, I am sure I got it.”

“Okay.” he agrees. O could use the distraction. He feels like all there’s ever been around her lately is his pain and her mom’s tiredness. “Who’s gonna watch her while you compete?”

“Jasper and Monty will be there. Miller too.”

“I should tag along. Help you out with the gear and keep an eye on her.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“I’m sorry if I don’t trust those kids who get drunk every other night with my sister, princess.” he snaps and she chuckles at that.

“Why not? You used to get drunk every night till you passed out.”

“That’s a low blow and you know it, princess.” he sits up and grips the chair’s handles.

“Not as low as you offending our friends!” she snaps back and he stands up, swinging so violently, he needs to lean on the wall so as not to fall. 

He clenches his jaw and squeezes his eyes shut before he takes in a deep breath and looks up again only to find her right before him, staring at his hunched self with worry.

“Here, let me help you to the guest room.”

“No. I got it.” he cuts her off and though she clearly wants to fight him, he doesn’t give her any room to do so. 

Slowly, he makes his way inside, leaving her on the porch and though he truly wants to get to the guest room and sleep with his little sister, he realizes soon enough that the farthest he’ll be able to go is the couch in the living room.

He collapses there and falls asleep as soon as he closes his eyes.

In the morning he wakes up from the joyous chatter coming from the kitchen where Clarke and O must be making breakfast.

He looks down at himself and finds a blanket covering his torso. He tries moving his arm first and it works but his leg is still more or less numb, so he decides to stay where he is a bit more.

Getting up was always a struggle in the morning. It took him fifteen minutes to sit up on bad days and this looked like one.

Deciding to close his eyes and rest a bit more gives him the opportunity to focus on the chatter coming from the kitchen.

“He often falls asleep on the couch at home too.” he hears his sister say.

“Oh yeah?”

“I think the mornings are the hardest for him.” O keeps on and he squeezes his eyes shut. This is not what his sister deserved.

“How come?” Clarke’s voice is quiet, hoarse, still sleepy. She always had a hard time waking up int he morning.

“He’s in a lot of pain. He struggles to walk. He doesn’t know it, but I’ve seen him groan and try to get himself dressed.”

“And what do you think we should do to help out?” he can imagine the princess leaning on the counter, swiping some chocolate on O’s nose.

“I don’t know.” O says sadly. “I think mom sees it too. She tried to help him get up once but he shrugged her off and told her to just go to work.”

“Bellamy’s stubborn like that.” Clarke comments and he hears the sound of plates being put on the counter.

“I know. It’s insane!” O says dramatically and he smiles despite the fact that his sister spend too much time thinking about him and his state for a nine year old.

After that they change the subject and talk about the rodeo. He listens them chew on their food and manages to get himself up while they’re busy with it. 

Sleeping in his clothes from yesterday wasn’t doing him any favors so he headed to the bathroom and took a shower, but not before taking some of the spare shirts and clothes he kept in a duffel in his truck so by the time he made it to the kitchen he was fresh and clean, dragging his leg but not as noticeably as last night.

Clarke’s still distant and he’s not blaming her. If anything, he’s happy about it. She would be safe without him in her life. He’d already hurt enough people-his mom, his sister, he could spare his best friend.

So he doesn’t try to fill the silence as he chews on the eggs and bacon she’s left for him and when they pile up in her truck for the rodeo, he lets O’s happy chatter and the Taylor Swift from the radio fill in the silence.

He feels distant, like he’s not really there with them and he spends most of his time just staring through the window and thinking how this is the first time since he passed out at Clarke’s farm and gave up on training that he was going to a rodeo.

After the accident he had tried competing once and he’d ended up in the ER again which made his mother not talk to him for weeks and O being mad at him for even longer.

He feels now much like he did back then-like he didn’t care about a damn thing in the world.

He watched his sister chatter with Clarke, smile, clap her hands in excitement and he couldn’t help but think how lucky she’d have been was she part of the Griffin family.

How at ease his mom’s heart would feel if he wasn’t right in front of her eyes struggling to walk and do simple things like putting his clothes on? 

How free the two of them would be was he not there?

The thought had found its place in his mind back in the hospital after the accident when the doctor told him he won’t be able to compete anymore. 

He’d been so sad and hopeless, he had refused the painkillers and just let the pain overwhelm him until he passed out-he considered it his own personal torture, his punishment. 

His mom fought with him. Clarke fought with him. Even Jake came by trying to talk some sense into his head but he was relentless. He was fine. It didn’t hurt as much. It was okay. He kept insisting as he gripped the sheets and felt sweat tickle down his forehead.

Clarke must’ve noticed something’s not right with him because when they get there and Octavia basically jumps off and runs to the entrance, she closes the door on her side and comes to help him off the bed of the truck.

“You alright?”

“Good” is all he says and nods towards his sister, suggesting they should follow her.

Once Clarke bids them goodbye and goes to prepare for her competition, he buys O a hot dog and finds them a good spot in the crowd. 

Many people recognize him, he was quite popular in the area and he’s trained with some of these guys or even helped with their horses. 

They pat him on the back, wave and ask how he’s doing so he plasters a fake smile for his sister and tries to keep his stance while they whisper how _“awful it is that he can no longer compete”_ behind his back.

Miller is down by the arena talking to Clarke, probably giving her a few last tips while Monty and Jasper make their way up to O and him. 

He’s known them almost as long as he’s been friends with Clarke. Monty’s folks owned a farm near the Griffin ranch and Jasper lived with them since his dad died in a car accident when he was ten. They were funny and goofy, got in trouble more often than not but they were good and true friends. 

Monty liked working on the farm, trying out different ways to cross the most insane combinations of vegetables and create a new type that he claimed one day would be a hit while Jasper got high and helped him with the chemical formulas as best as he could. 

Miller was a friend of Bellamy’s from high school. He was really good with horses, not as good as Bellamy, but a pretty decent rider nonetheless. His father was a policemen and Miller was going to soon follow in his footsteps but in the meantime he still did some rodeoing on the side.

He focuses on the arena after that, leaving his sister and the boys have their fun beside him before they decide they’ve had enough and want to get closer so they can see the horses better. 

Bellamy grabs Jasper’s arm last minute and warns them to keep O safe before he lets them go and just watches the horses as they struggled to throw the competitors off their backs.

It reminded him of his own struggle, to throw away that part of him that just wouldn’t let him be himself.

Clarke came in first, not that it was a surprise to him. 

She was really good, had been riding since she was three, started competing when she turned twelve. He still smiled and applauded her despite struggling to even make himself think or talk.

“Bell, did you see her? It was like she was flying!” O jumped in front of him when he finally made his way all the way down to the arena. “She was so good!”

“You’re exaggerating, kiddo.” Clarke joins in all sweaty and breathless but smiling nonetheless. She takes her cowboy hat off and places it O’s head “I could’ve never done it without my lucky charm.” Bellamy smiles at the exchange. 

He used to do the same thing for his sister who came to almost every one of his rodeos.

“Meet you in ten so we can grab a burger? I’m starving.” she says and all of them cheer. He lets his sister go outside with Jasper, Monty and Miller and just when Clarke’s about to jump off the fence he gently grabs her wrist.

“You did good, Griffin.” he offers, not really looking her in the eye but knowing he had to say it.

“Are you really okay, Bellamy?” she asks, all tension from last night long forgotten. 

Maybe she’s not as mad at him as she was before. She could never hold a grudge for too long.

“Bellamy Blake” he hears a voice coming from behind and a second later he faces Roan King’s smug face coming right in their direction “Good to see you back here.”

“Roan.” Bellamy doesn’t take the hand he’s offered and Clarke jumps off the fence to join Bellamy’s side, knowing he’ll need it.

Roan and Bellamy were old enemies. Back when Bellamy was just starting his career, Roan had been jealous of his talent and tried to rig some of the rodeos so that he won unfairly. 

There was also a bar fight in which they’d fought quite violently so they both spend the night at the county jail. 

Roan was good, but not enough, he lacked Bellamy’s natural talent and somehow the horses got jumpier around him, he didn’t have it in him to tame them, calm them down. _“It’s cause his heart is cold”_ O had said once and Bellamy had to agree, despite it sounding a bit dramatic. 

The guy literally gave him the chills.

“Nice win, Griffin.” he finally acknowledged Clarke who now stood side by side to Bellamy, her arms crossed over her chest and her chin up in a way Bellamy could only describe as defiant-she was ready to fight him and he wish he had it in him to smile at that.

“What do you want?”

“Hey, easy there, I’m not trying to stir trouble. I come with a suggestion.”

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard it.”

“I don’t need to hear it.” Bellamy turns his back to him and Clarke’s about to follow when Roan’s voice rises once again.

“What I have to offer is better than carrying flour bags all day long, trust me.”

Bellamy is at his face in a second, reaching to fist his shirt and tell him to shut up but before he can, Clarke’s hand on his shoulder pulls him back.

“Relax, Blake. I mean it, I’m not fucking around.” Roan says seriously and Bellamy clenches his jaw even harder, feeling the blood in his head thump like a drum.

“I suggest you say what you gotta say before I let him wipe the floor with you.” Clarke warns and Roan chuckles at that.

“I’m in need of your services.”

“I don’t train horses anymore.”

“I don’t want you train my horses. I need you to train me.”

Bellamy laughs at that, a real honest laugh he hasn’t heard from himself in a while and he has to almost wipe at his tears before he can look him in the eyes again.

“No.”

“Come on, Blake, you saw me today.”

“You came in second.” Clarke chimes in her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Exactly.”Roan turns back to Bellamy “I need to be first. You can make that happen.”

“No.”

“I’ll pay you triple at what you get at the store and add more if you give my daughter riding lessons too.”

“Clarke gives lessons to kids” he cuts him off “And I already have work.”

“I only need a day of your time.”

“He already works six days a week” Clarke states and Bellamy gives her a curious look. He had no idea she knew his schedule from. Didn’t think she cares at all about it either. “He’s not spending his one day off working for you of all people.”

Roan smiles, takes out a card from his back pocket and shoves it in Bellamy’s hand.

“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Roan says with a smile and tips his cowboy hat “Give me a call, Blake.”

Before he leaves he leans close to Bellamy’s ear and whispers something Clarke can’t make out which makes Bellamy’s face pale significantly.

“Hey, you okay?” Clarke asks once Roan’s lost in the crowd. Bellamy stares down at the card before he shoves it in his jean’s pocket and gives her a curt nod.

“Please tell me you’re not actually considering this.” she asks once they’re on their way outside. When he doesn’t respond she stands in his way and puts her hand on his chest to stop him. 

“Bellamy, you already work hard enough.”

“You heard him. He doesn’t need me to train his horses, just him. I will just be barking orders at him and showing him a thing or two, it won’t be a strain on me.”

“Whatever he said, it’s not worth it, Bell. It’s not.” she tries again but he shakes his head.

“Like you know anything about it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I need the money, Clarke!” he barks at her and her head falls.

“Like this?”

“You’re gonna judge me now, princess? That’s a low blow ever for you!” he tries to pass her by again but she’s faster and jumps right in his path before he can drag his fucked up body away.

“So you’ll take work from Roan but not me and dad? Or Kane?”

“Yes.” he hisses “Because at least he doesn’t pity me like you do.”

She deflates because she sees the pain in his eyes and for a moment they just stay there staring at each other.

“You know if you at least once try to put yourself in my shoes and try to see what this is like for me, you’ll realize I’m right.”

“Maybe.” she agrees and turns her back to him as she starts walking forward. He follows her and she can hear him drag his leg behind in the dirt. “It doesn’t make it hurt any less seeing you in pain.” she mumbles to herself but she feels like he has heard her too.

On the way home he climbs back on the bed of the truck and when they stop by the diner, Clarke sees he’s fallen asleep.

The others suggest they wake him up but Clarke doesn’t want to. It’s probably the only decent sleep he’s gotten that week so she just grabs some takeaway and drives O back to her place. Bellamy’s truck was still there either way.

When they get home he wakes up and seems quite drowsy as he struggles to get off.

“We should go home, O. You have school tomorrow.”

“But Bell!!”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair but mom will be pissed off if you don’t do your homework. You’ve had enough fun for the weekend anyway, come on now.” he urges her to his truck.

“Thank you, for everything.” he says and Clarke shrugs trying to play it nonchalant though she knows this is a lot coming from him.

“I did it for Octavia.”

Lies. 

She did it for him too but she had to be stubborn like that, she had to hide her love away for reasons unknown even to her.

Bellamy smiles knowingly, though, but doesn’t say anything about it.

“I’m sorry for leaving like I did last time. You and your dad deserve better.”

“We do.”

‘You won’t make it easy for me, will you, princess?” he finally gives her his boyish smirk and Clarke tries to keep her serious composure.

“Nope.” that gets a laugh out of him before he pulls her to his chest and hugs her tight. For a minute, she feels like she’s back to when she was fourteen and he was holding her in his arms as she cried for the loss of her mom.

“I truly appreciate you, Griffin.” he whispers in her ear before pulling back and ruffling her head like he often did with Octavia “But you gotta worry less.”

“We’ll see about that!” he winks and heads to the truck but she can’t lie that her heart feels a little lighter after hugging her best friend.

* * *

A week later, Bellamy calls Roan and they agree to meet next Sunday and start working on his training. 

Except, they never get to do it.

The more time Bellamy spends at Cage’s place, the more tired he gets and every night he gets home later than usual because Dax keeps coming up with excuses to punish him for something and give him extra time without paying for it at all.

He’s in so much pain that one night when he comes home and heads straight for his room, Aurora hears something heavy hit the floor and drops the plates she was drying only to rush in there and find him collapsed on the floor.

“Bellamy!” she puts her hands on his shoulders and helps him roll over. “Oh my god.”

He’s squeezing his eyes shut and his breathing is so labored, that she’s afraid he’s barely pulling any air in his lungs at all.

“Goddammit, Bellamy.” she curses when he finally opens his eyes and she can clearly see the pain there. 

His pupils seem dilated too and when she touches his cheek, she realizes he’s burning up, probably because he’s in a lot of pain.

Or because he fucked something else up.

“What did you do?” she asks him not really expecting an answer as her hand travels to his numb arm down to his bad leg. His body jerks when she touches the most painful spots and she gets up to her feet looking for his pills.

“Where are the pain meds?” she asks rummaging through his drawer and failing to find them among the pile of orange bottles he has there “Thought Nyko wrote you a new prescription the last time he was here?”

“I…” he struggles to respond so looks him in the eyes again and he just shakes his head “Didn’t buy them at all.” he utters through his teeth and that makes her bawl her hands into fists and close the bedside drawer so hard that even the lamp shook.

“You stubborn boy!” she curses and takes a second to compose herself. This wouldn’t help him, she knew it, but she had the right to be mad at him for not taking care of himself.

“What about the headache ones? Or those about the blood pressure?” she keeps rummaging through the other drawers and his desk, wiping at her eyes with fierceness, trying to get control of her emotions.

“The bathroom.” he tells her and she stops her frantic movements before turning around and resting her hand on her forehead for a second.

“Mom?” he begs but she can’t hear it now, she just can’t, so she just gathers all her strength, leans down so she can shove her hands under his armpits and gives him a serious look.

“I need to get you on the bed.”

“Okay.” he reassures that he can try and help her and he does, with his functioning leg he lifts himself up and then she basically drops him on the bed in a very uncomfortable crooked position. 

She climbs on the squeaky mattress next and with his good hand and his last ounce of strength he helps her position him so that his head is on the pillow and his body is not hanging off the bed.

“Mom…” he pleads again but she doesn’t pay him any attention. 

She can’t bear to fight with him now, she is just too angry so she moves his feet up, takes off his old boots, then moves up to drag his sweaty shirt off his weak chest and helps him into a new one despite his protests and grunts.

“Mom, please” he tries again but she won’t have it. She heads to the bathroom, finds his meds and rushes to the kitchen for a glass of water. 

By the time she comes back he’s struggling to sit up, so she has to push him back down.

“Don’t you dare, Bellamy!” she scolds “Here” she helps him take the pills and leans his head back on the pillow. “If you’d taken those then at least your head would’ve been fine now.”

“I did.” his voice is hoarse, weak, barely there.

It scares her truly for the first time that night. Even more so than finding him passed out.

“Twice a day?” she asks and he closes his eyes because he’s too afraid to face his angry mother.

“Once.”

“Why?” she demands, sitting by his side on the bed and pulling the blanket up his torso. He shakes his head but she puts her hand on his wrist and squeezes it tight “Why, Bellamy?”

“You know why.” he just answers, barely opening his eyes and turning his head so that half his face is buried in the pillow.

“If the answer to that is money, I’m going to kill you myself.”

“Octavia needed a new jacket.” he cuts her off and not he sounds angry “Things for school, shoes…I-I won’t watch her go there with my old worn out stuff.”

“Bellamy Blake-”

“No,mom,please, don’t. I fucked up, I know it, I just…” he reaches for her hand himself this time and waits for her to wrap her fingers around his “I’ll be okay tomorrow, promise. There are good and bad days. It’s just a bad one.”

She wants to fight him, tell him that almost every day for him since the accident has been a bad one . That she can see him struggle so much and barely holds herself back not to reach out and help him when he climbs the stairs or gets up in the morning.

But she knows there’s no point in fighting him. She just had to do things her way, not give him a choice in the matter because if she did, he’d completely ruin himself to the point where he’ll pass out and not wake up ever again.

And she couldn’t have that.

She stays with him for about an hour formulating a plan and keeping an eye on him. His fever doesn’t really die out and his pulse is too fast for her liking, despite the medicine but he seems mostly at peace. On couple of occasions he wakes up gasping, either looking for her or calling out Clarke which makes her smile sadly.

He liked that girl, despite the fact that he’s been trying to deny it since he was sixteen and she hoped one day she’d live to see them together.

For that, she had to first keep him alive.

And she had every intention of doing so.

* * *

He wakes up by someone’s hand gripping his shoulder and shaking him harsh and he opens his eyes to find Nyko staring down at him, his hand on his forehead mumbling something he couldn’t make sense of at first.

Finally, he recognizes his mother’s voice.

“…when I found him passed out and things haven’t really changed since last night.”

“Mom?” he asks and tries to raise himself on his elbows “What’s going on?”

Nyko pushes him back to the pillows.

“You better not move right now, son.” he warns flashing a light in his eyes and keeping his chin in place when Bellamy tries to get away from him.

“I have work, I need to go-”

“No, you don’t. I called Cage and told him you quit.”

“You WHAT?” he raises his voice and keeps struggling against the doctor but Nyko’s big hand on his chest prevents him from moving too much so he ends up giving his mom the angriest look he has.

“We’ll talk about that later.” she cuts him off “Now he has to check how you’re doing.” she says, taking his hand gently in hers and squeezing it hard “Please, Bellamy, let him take a look.”

He sighs but relaxes back on the bed while Nyko checks his pupils once more, then measures his blood pressure and frowns at it.

“It’s too high.” he says shaking his head and taking the stethoscope off his neck to listen to his breathing. “You said have him a pill last night?”

“Yeah but he hasn’t been taking them in a while.” his mom remains on the other side of the bed so she doesn’t bother the doctor and keeps his hand in hers until Nyko needs to check that out too.

“How bad is the pain?” he asks him when his hands carefully roam over his arm looking for swelling and then moving to his leg which is in a worse state.

“It’s okay.”

“I need you to be honest, son.” Nyko says seriously and you know when he sounds pissed off like that, you don’t want to make it worse “If you want me to help, you have to tell me.”

 _I don’t want you to help_ , was all that Bellamy wanted to say. _I want for you all to leave me alone, so I can lay down here and rot in peace._

But he couldn’t do it to his mom so he just grit his teeth.

“It’s…strong but bearable.”

“Sharp or dull?” the doctor’s hands find his swollen knee and it seems to make him even angrier. He carefully takes it and helps him bend it which causes Bellamy to shiver and grip his mom’s hand.

“Dull…throbbing.”

Nyko hmms and keeps massaging his leg, trying to get the blood flowing back in.

“Feels numb, yes?”

“Yeah” Bellamy nods still trying to overcome the pain. “Mostly from the knee down.”

“Can you try and bend it on your own for me?” Nyko asks carefully placing his fucked up leg back on the bed and giving Aurora a look suggesting they had to be patient.

Bellamy struggles and only makes it halfway before his leg thumps down lifelessly. He’s so embarrassed by himself, he tears his good hand away from his mom and covers his eyes it.

“The arm the same way?” Nyko asks and Bellamy just nods, he doesn’t have it in him to give them another show. He knows he’s pretty much useless as it is.

“You need PT. I’ve been saying it since the accident and you never really listened to me. The more you try to push your body, the faster your bones will tire, the harder your head will hurt.” he takes out out a shot from the bag and cleans up his left arm before sticking it with gentleness only few doctors possessed “This is for the blood pressure. It’s too high and too much of a strain to your heart.”

“Is that why he has trouble breathing?” his mom’s voice sounds strong but Bellamy knows it’s just a facade.

“One of the reasons, yes.” Nyko sighs as he keeps on his work and massages his leg, then moves it up, helps him bend it over before he moves to his arm. “You should be coming to the hospital center at least twice a week, if not more in that condition, until you get a little better.”

Bellamy just shakes his head and listens to his mom apologize for him.

“Okay, that better?” he asks once he’s done and covers Bellamy up with a blanket.

“Yeah, thank you.”

“You know you don’t have to constantly be in pain, Bellamy. There are ways to ease it, one of them is by letting me help.” he doesn’t wait for an answer so Bellamy just closes his eyes and looks away while his mom sends Nyko off. He hears them talk in the hallway, Nyko giving her instructions and his mom listening carefully.

“Most important thing is to control the blood pressure now and ease the headaches, so you need to make sure he takes his medication.”

“What about his leg?”

“It’s not good but I think he’s unfortunately quite used to the pain. You can put on some cold towels around the joins-his knee, the ankle, to ease the pain since he doesn’t want any pills and I don’t think we’re gonna change his mind about that.”

Bellamy drowns out their voices and almost dozes off by the time his mom comes back. She’s not as angry as she was yesterday but he can see the frown on her forehead and he knows she’s still mad.

“You know…” he begins while she fusses around fixing the blankets for him and then sorting out all the clothes from the floor, trying to figure out which ones she should put in the laundry and which ones are actually clean and belong to the drawers. “I might be the only boy in Arkadia who’s mom quit his job for him.”

“Don’t you start it, Bellamy!”

“Mom, you can’t just do this-”

“Actually, I can and I will!” she tosses an old sweater on the chair and turns angrily to him “You’re done with Cage-all this boy does is run his workers to the ground and never pay them enough. I’ve talked to Kane-”

“Mom, no, he’s your employer, I won’t be-”

“I’ve talked to Kane” she cuts him off again “He’s got a position in the kitchen in his other diner and I told him as soon as you’re back on your feet you’ll be starting off.”

“Mom!” he manages to raise himself up on his elbows which cost his vision to blur for a second.

“I’ve had enough of your bullshit, Bellamy! You’re working for Kane and you’ll get on with your PT.”

“We don’t have money for PT and you know it!”

“We’ll make some! Same counts for the medication. I don’t ever want to hear you say you didn’t buy the pills because your sister needed something. You won’t be making those sacrifices!”

“You’re damn right I will. She’s my sister and I’ll always do what’s best for her!”

“Except it’s not your job. I’m her mother, I provide for her. I take care of both of you!”

He laughs and finally collapses back on the pillows.

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mom, I practically raised her myself and you know it. It’s always been us against the world ever since she was born and you placed her in my arms in the hospital.”

“Bellamy-”

“You even wanted me to join the Army before we knew I could make money from bull riding or have you forgotten that? Don’t you remember wishing for a better life for her? College?”

“I wasn’t right.” Aurora shakes her head with regret he hasn’t seen in her eyes before. “It wasn’t fair of me to put her needs above yours and I see it now.”

He sighs closing his eyes and trying to get a hold of himself. His head feels like it’s about to explode so he grips the sheets and waits for it to pass.

“My sister, my responsibility.” he whispers and meets her eyes again “That’s what you told me back then. It hasn’t changed. It won’t.”

“If you love her that much, then you need to take care of yourself. You need to stay alive, Bellamy, because you and I both know you’re walking a line here and any second that you trip over is a second you might not come back.” her voice breaks at that “Please, just stop fighting me and start fighting for yourself!”

He swallows hard at that and stares at the ceiling as he hears her leave the room and close the door with a thud.

He lays there trapped in bed, broken and feeling completely useless, wishing he could tell her that he doesn’t have the strength to keep his eyes open, let alone try to fight for his life. 

Wishing he could explain how it feels inside him-that hollowness, the void, feeling empty, like a shell. 

Tears gather at the edge of his eyes and he brushes them away angrily, much like his mom earlier.

He had to stop making their life harder. Octavia needed him still, so did his mom and as much as he felt like punishing himself for failing them, he had to work and help them.

He hasn’t touched the money he’s put aside in Octavia’s college fund. Money he’s won in rodeos. Money his mom knew nothing of. But he still had to add to it and if they wanted to keep living here, they definitely needed to do some improvements.

He had to keep going, for them. His feelings mattered not, it was all about getting back on the saddle and doing the job.

So the next time his mom comes in his room and he’s awake he puts his hand on her wrist while she helps him take some water and looks her in the eyes.

“Okay.” he says “We’ll do it your way.”

The truth is, he doesn’t have the strength to fight anyone anymore.

* * *

“Next morning he wakes up from his mom’s hand on his cheek and he looks up to find her face illuminated by the bright summer sun just peaking behind the curtains.

“Hey” she says softly, gently removing a strand of hair from his forehead “Clarke’s coming in with your sister. She’ll stay with you guys while my shift is done.”

He would usually fight her on it but since he had no strength to do so he simply nodded and turned his head away from her burying it in the pillow. 

She’d told him yesterday afternoon when he had woken up, that his sister’s with Clarke for the night. She probably send her off there so she could deal with him and the guilt alone made it hard for him to breathe.

“Doesn’t she have things to do?” he asks simply, not trying to stir the pot but genuinely curious.

“She offered and I agreed” Aurora explains pulling the blanket up and bringing a cup of water to his lips so he can take his meds “So don’t be mean to her okay? She’s your friend and you gotta let her in.”

He doesn’t say anything to that, simply lets his head fall back on the pillow and try to overcome the stabbing pain in the back of his skull.

“How are you today?”

“I’m good.” he lies “Better.”

“Nyko’s coming to check on you again.” she announces and expects him to retort but he simply nods and turns his back to her, not feeling like talking at all. “Okay, well I’m off to work. Be good to Clarke and your sister, alright?” she leans down to kiss his forehead and he lets her treat him like a little kid because he was just as useless.

Half an hour or so later, he hears the front door open and his sister’s enthusiastic chatter filling the room. Soon, she’s bursting through his place and he rolls over, plastering a fake smile on his face and hugging her when she practically throws herself in him.

Clarke follows right behind carrying a tray with what seems to be some eggs and bacon.

“Give your brother some air to breathe, Octavia” she says, stroking his sister’s hair while O presses her cheek to her brother’s chest and rolls her eyes.

“Leave her be, I’m okay.”

“Are you?” Octavia asks seriously, pulling away from him and looking him in the eye.

He touches her nose with his finger and makes her smile.

“Of course, I am kiddo, it’s just my old bones hurt sometimes.”

“And your thick head?”

“Now did Clarke teach you all this, huh?” he tickles her and that makes O giggle and roll off of him only to end up on his good side. He opens his arm for her and she leans her head on his shoulder.

“Hey, don’t get me in the middle of your sibling’s spat, alright?” she sits on the edge of the bed after putting the tray on the bedside drawer. “Nyko will be here soon. Maybe you should eat before that.”

“I’m not really that hungry.” he mumbles but when O throws him a worried look he adds “But I’ll get some of those burned eggs of yours, Griffin.”

He barely eats half of it but he seems at peace while O blabs cheerfully, telling him stories of riding Moreen and going to the movies with Clarke, Miller and Jasper and Monty last night which makes his heart clench. He was here uselessly lying in bed when she was out having fun. Good, she needed it. He just missed being by her side.

When Nyko comes, Clarke takes O outside to water the tomatoes they grew in the garden. At some point she comes back just as Nyko’s massaging his leg again and Clarke eyes him curiously.

“How’s pre-med going?” he asks her with a smile and she shrugs.

“Hard as hell.”

“It will be worth it, you’ll see.” she nods eyeing Bellamy who’s head is tilted to the side as he stares out the window, not really paying attention to what they’re saying probably because knowing him, he feels embarrassed as hell about being in the position he was in. 

“Wanna learn how to do that?” Nyko asks her and she perks up at that but nods eagerly.

“Great, I’m a dummy for the princess to practice on now.” Bellamy groans but when Clarke sits by Nyko to watch carefully he moves his head to her and seems to be back to reality once again which makes her glad he’s got enough strength to tease her.

“Okay, so right now his joints are swollen and his leg is mostly numb, you see?” Nyko points out at his knee and ankle, even some of his toes “So what we can do right now is just ease the pain, get some blood flowing back in. We’re not aiming at improving his quality of walking, it’s just dealing with the pain right now so you can do this” he shows her how he carefully massages the area between his knee and ankle, then moves his fingers to his upper leg and then back down 

“Avoid the joints, they hurt him enough as it is, you can’t apply pressure there, only around it.” Clarke watches carefully and nods along “You can judge by the swelling and the redness where it’s the worst for him, okay?” so he points at the knee area again “He’ll need some ice for that, maybe some wet cold towels but that comes after you’re done.”

“Alright.”

“I’m a snack, ain’t I, princess?” he jokes as Nyko ignores him and bends his knee up to his chest then back down.

“You need to help him move it, the muscles are lazy cause he’s been in bed for two days so you need to wake them up a bit. It helps get some movement in his leg too. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna try what I just did?”

“And what? Let her break my leg? Better prepare the cast, doc.”

“Oh shut up, Bellamy.” he smiles for the first time in days, genuinely and when she takes Nyko’s place and puts one hand on his foot and the other on his knee, carefully bending it to his chest, getting closer to his face he smirks even wider.

“Knew you always wanted to kiss me, princess.” he whispers ”Don’t have to become a doctor just for the sake of it.”

“Nyko, what does one do when the patient doesn’t know how to shut his mouth?” the doctor laughs and gives them a curious look.

“Well, I can show you how you can torture him instead of help ease his pain.”

“Thought you were supposed to be healing people.” Bellamy huffs but when Clarke moves his leg up to bend it to his chest again, the pain increases and he groans.

Her hands immediately leave his body and he grips the sheets.

“Easy! Don’t apply too much pressure, alright?” Nyko gently scolds her while he takes in a sharp breath.

“It’s okay, doc.” he jokes as he feels the sweat tickle down his forehead “She was just getting back at me.”

“I’m sorry.” she says seriously and he shakes his head.

“Wasn’t you,princess, it’s okay.” Nyko then shows her how they can work his arm and by the end of the massage he can move his fingers freely. When Clarke takes up on it herself, she’s a little harsh but he bites back his pain despite it all, gives her his best smile and keeps teasing her just to keep the mood light.

“Good, that’s enough.” Nyko puts an end to it when he sees Bellamy’s relieved face and knows the pain’s better “Now those are as I said just to ease his state but if he starts going to PT like he should be, it would improve his walking, the use of his hand, his whole quality of life. Right now we’re just keeping the demons at bay but not really doing much else.”

“So in a few hours he’ll be the same as before we started?”

“Pretty much.” Bellamy laughs it out but both Nyko and Clarke furrow their eyebrows at him “Told you you’re wasting your breath over nothing, princess.”

“It’s not over nothing if you’re feeling better even despite refusing pain killers.” Nyko snaps at him and Bellamy’s face falls.

“I’m sorry, I appreciate what you’re doing for me.” he says seriously “I really do.”

Nyko sighs and starts shoving his things back in his med bag while Clarke fusses around with the blankets, trying to cover Bellamy back up but he puts his hand on her wrist before she can do anything.

“You think maybe I can take a short walk?” he asks and Nyko stops whatever he’s doing to look at him.

His expression says it all.

“I’m sorry, kid. Not today.”

“I feel better, though.”

“I know you do, but your blood pressure’s still too high for my liking and there’s no point in us putting extra pressure on that leg in the condition it is in.”

“Hey” Clarke rubs her hand over his arm “You’ll be back on your feet in a few days.”

“Try a few weeks.” Nyko shakes his head and sits down on the chair next to the bed which Aurora has occupied last night, keeping an eye on him, refusing to leave her son’s side “And you’ll need to use crutches again.” Bellamy swallows hard and closes his eyes for a second.

“I’m sorry, kid but you really fucked things up this time. It will take more than some ice and a few hours of rest.”

“But he’ll be fine, right?” Clarke asks and Nyko nods with certainty.

“Of course. I’ll make sure of it. But he’s gotta help out too.”

“Thanks, doc.” Bellamy mumbles and watches him get up and grab his bag. Just as he’s about to leave, he hesitates, turns around and puts his hand on Bellamy’s shoulder “No funny business, okay?”

“I don’t know what that means, doc” Bellamy smiles but Nyko’s serious expression doesn’t change under his bad boy bravado.

“Eat, rest, take your meds. Don’t fight your mother and listen to Clarke.”

“Oh my god, are you really prescribing me “listen to Clarke”. That’s insane.” he smiles again but Nyko just shakes his head.

“Don’t push yourself, don’t try to walk except to go to the bathroom and when you’re in pain, don’t try to move too much, you’re only making it worse, okay?”

Bellamy sighs dramatically and nods.

“Okay. But you should know if you’re leaving me in the hands of the princess here, I can’t be accountable of what I have to do to get that winning smirk off her face.”

“Stop being so dramatic” Clarke squeezes his elbow and nods to the door “I’ll see you off, Nyko. Thanks for everything.”

She comes back a minute later to tell him she’ll help out O in the garden and then give her lunch and ask him if he’s okay with being on his own to which he replies he is, that he’ll probably just sleep.

And he does. He falls and he dreams of being a kid and climbing the fence of the Griffin mansion to work with Harrison, their old black mare, the first horse he ever trained without knowing what he’s actually doing.

He wakes up when he falls off of the horse and he wishes it was just the nightmare shaking him back to reality but it’s not. There’s a really sharp pain up in his leg that spreads all the way down to his toes and it’s so intense, he can’t prevent himself from whimpering.

“It’s okay.” he whispers to himself and grips his leg with his hand as he looks left and right. The light coming from the window tells him it must be late afternoon. He can hear Octavia running in the backyard, playing with their dog Ares and Clarke’s voice yelling something to her like _“Be careful!”_ , or _“Go easy.“_

He squeezes his eyes shut. The pain blinds him and he struggles against the mattress.

It has only been that intense the night his mom found him collapsed and ever since Nyko has been coming out to help him, it’s been there, dull and throbbing but not like this-not sharp and unbearable. He’d thought he’d chased it away.

He bites his tongue when he tries to will himself not to scream.

“It’s okay, it’s alright” he mumbles, breathing in and out heavily. “I’m alright.”

But it doesn’t go away.

He feels the sweat come down his forehead and mix up with the tears streaming down his cheeks. He knows he shouldn’t be moving too much but he can’t help it-he needs some kind of release though all he does is wrap the blankets tighter around his body and make it worse.

“Bellamy!” he hears Clarke’s voice and when he opens his eyes he realizes he must look really terrible for her face to be that scared. She rushes by his side and climbs on the bed. “Bellamy, what is it?”

He just shakes his head and grips the sheets tighter.

“Here, here, wait. Shit, you’ve tangled yourself up.”

He yelps when she pulls the blankets away but he can’t stop his body from tossing.

“You need to stop moving, okay? You remember what Nyko said, come on, Bellamy.”

“I can’t…I can’t…” he grits through teeth and looks at her, hoping she’ll understand what he means. He needs to be restrained somehow so he nods and she climbs on his legs, mindful of not putting too much pressure on his bad one.

“Come on, give me your hand” she tells him and he unclenches his fingers from the sheets to rest his shaky hand on his torso. She wraps hers around his just a second later and he exhales for a brief moment.

“You can squeeze it as hard as you need to, okay?”

“You got to…you have to-”

“Don’t talk!”

He squeezes hard, he’s so afraid he’ll hurt her when the pain washes over him that he has to force himself to let go once in a while. The minute he does, though, she knows what he’s doing so he squeezes his in return, in reassurance. _I can take it_ , is what she’s trying to say.

“You need to close the door, I don’t want O seeing me like this.”

“Don’t worry, she’s out in the backyard playing with Ares, she won’t be back soon.”

The pain is really bad, he starts shaking so hard he is barely holding on.

“Princess….I might break your hand.” he breathes out and she shakes her head but hold onto him tight.

“Am I making it worse?” she wonders when she feels him tremble but he shakes his head and that has to be enough for her.

“I don’t know what to do,Bell. You need to help me here.” she begs and he smile as he tries to stifle another groan and bites his lip so hard she can see he’s drawing blood.

“Talk to me. Tell me something.”

Her mind is blank for a second and she uses it to dig out her memory for anything useful. He’s always been the story teller out of the two of them, always read smart books of long dead Greek authors or told stories of brave princesses he came up with himself.

“Doesn’t have…to be…anything…special.” he sees her internal battle and looks at her through barely open eyelids. “If we’re lucky I’ll just pass out at some point.”

“Has it been this bad before?” he simply nods and squeezes her hand reminding her to get to the point.

“Okay, remember that time when we were kids when you thought you could sneak in Jaha’s stables and try to tame their horse Busters?”

That makes him smile and his grip on her hand eases a bit which she takes as a good sign that she’s successful in distracting him. Her free hand reaches out for the rag on the drawer and dips it in the water bowl before she spreads it over his forehead. He relaxes under her touch if only just for a brief moment.

“Horrible…name…for a horse.”

“I know! But it was so pretty wasn’t it? With those brown and white spots and the heart on his muzzle?”

“He was strong” Bellamy agrees and his shivers calm down a bit.

“So were you. Remember how you climbed on the fence and jumped on his back?”

“He tried to…”

“Throw you off!” she finishes for him when she knows he doesn’t have the strength. Just when she believes the pain is finally subsiding, his body arches under hers and he finally gives voice to his screams. He slaps his good hand over and tries to muffle it, probably so that O doesn’t hear him.

“Hey, hey, look at me, focus on me” she cups his cheek with her free hand while holding onto his other one “Remember he did throw you off and then you stood up and climbed on his back again. Grabbed the reins and showed him who’s in charge.” he struggles under her, god he must be in so much pain she wouldn’t know if he was lucid at all or not.

“I need you to do that now again, Bell.” she asks of him gently shaking his head trying to bring him to her “I need you to get a hold of this.”

“Don’t worry.” he says instead and her hear breaks “I’ll pass out and I won’t feel it.”

“Bell-”

“It’ll be fine.” he utters “Just hold onto me a bit longer.” he asks of her and she has never heard him say anything like this before. 

Not even after the accident in the hospital when he seemed to be his most hopeless, not even when he passed out back at their place. This was something else. 

“Just a bit longer.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” she promises and he nods and squeezes his eyes shut.

He keeps tossing for another fifteen minutes, groaning, sweating, trying not to scream his lungs out and all she can do is hold him-his hand, her knees wrapped around his legs, a rag pressed to his forehead, her quiet whispers telling him it will be alright when he was drowning in pain.

Until true to his words, he passes out.

* * *

She stares at him like this-his body lifeless, finally relaxing into the bed he’s been tossing onto for more than an hour. 

Clarke briefly wonders how long it has been before she came in and found him here. If she hadn’t thought about checking up on him, he’d never call her, never ask for her-he’d stay here and suffer on his own until this happened.

He looked dead. 

If it wasn’t for the hectic rise and fall of his chest, his body fighting to breathe to keep him here, she’d think he’s gone. 

His face was pale, covered in sweat. The wet rag she put on his forehead had fallen down on the floor when his head rolled to the left of his soaked pillow. His shirt was drenched in sweat, like the curls stuck to his forehead but his hand…his hand still gripped her just as tight as when he was awake which told her there’s still pain lingering in his body, it’s just he wasn’t aware of it right now.

She finally let her tears go. 

Covering her mouth with her hand she wept in a way she hadn’t done since she was a kid and her mom had left them. Back then he held her in his arms and told her all would be fine…now she wrapped herself around his body and watched as he was barely holding onto this world. 

“Clarke?” Octavia’s voice cuts her tears short and she takes in a deep breath, trying very hard to compose herself. If Bellamy could stifle his screams, she could bite back her tears. 

“I’m coming, sweetie.”

“Is Bell okay?”

“Yeah, I was just fixing his blankets. Is there something you need?” she finally turns around to see her clothes all dirty.

“Uh…I fell chasing Ares and…I think mom will be mad if she sees me like this.”

“Let’s get you all cleaned up then.” Clarke quickly stands up, fixes the blanket over him and touches his head briefly before turning her attention back to Octavia.

“Is he gonna be fine?”

“Yeah, he’s still sleeping. He needs the rest.” Clarke assures her and thankfully the kid buys it. 

She draws her a bath, cleans her up and helps her into her PJs before warming up some of the meal Aurora had left for them in the fridge and turning the TV on. 

She wanted to desperately check on him again but she had to take care of O first, moreover she doubted he’d wake up any time soon.

Octavia falls asleep rather quickly, probably because she was exhausted from running around the yard all day and being too excited last night at the movies, so 

Clarke carefully carries her to Aurora’s bedroom where she slept now and tucked her in before practically rushing to Bellamy’s room.

She finds him still asleep but not as soundly anymore. He must’ve woken up and struggled again because his pillow is on the floor and the blanket’s off of him. 

Carefully she places the pillow back under his head but that seems to be enough to stir his shallow sleep. His eyelids flutter and he catches her looking at him with the most scared and worried expression.

She doesn’t say anything at first and neither does he but he seems to still be in pain though he’s a bit more lucid. Clarke brings a cup of water to his lips and he drinks it eagerly before she fixes the blanket over and then lies down next to him, on his good side. 

For a few minutes they just stay there like this-his still heavy breathing filling the air and her arm falling down next to his, their fingers barely grazing.

Then she rolls to her side and looks at him.

“Why?” she asks and he gives her a side look in confusion, not being able to fully turn to her so he can see her expression but judging by her voice she’s angry. “Why do you refuse the painkillers?”

“I can’t stand them.” he utters after a while “They make me sleep for days and give me these dreams…I…they might take it all away but I’m afraid I’ll get addicted to them and I can’t have that. Mom can’t have that. Neither can O.”

“So you struggle.”

“Pain’s easy once you get used to it.”

“Tell this to your body from a few hours ago.” she remarks and he simply shrugs.

“I’m sorry you had to witness this princess.” his voice is barely above a whisper but when he turns his head to her she can see his full of tears eyes just as much as the pain still lingering there. “But I’ll take that every day to being high and thinking everything’s alright when it’s not.”

She nods knowing there’s more to it and feeling the need to voice it, the words escape her lips.

“That and your mom, right?”

“Right.”

A few years after Bellamy was born Aurora started going out with the wrong crowds when she lost her husband. She messed with the local gangs, started selling drugs for them and using herself. Bellamy was five or six at the time and despite his young age he still remembers the way his mom acted when she was high. It wasn’t until Octavia was born that Aurora got it together and cleaned herself up. She started going to a support group where she met Kane who hired her once she was nine months sober. She hadn’t touched anything since but Clarke understood where Bellamy was coming from. 

On the one hand there was the threat of his mom getting addicted again, using his pain killers and on the other…was he. He could get addicted too and he refused to do to Octavia what was done to him. 

Clarke tentatively comes closer and buries her nose in his arm before reaching her hand for his and intertwining their fingers. He seems a bit tense at first but then he relaxes and his thumb rubs the back of her hand.

“Is it still bad?”

“No” he reassures “It’s bearable now.”

“Do you need something? More water? Food?” he shakes his head and squeezes her hand in reply that he was fine.

“Where’s my sister?”

“All tucked in.”

“Mom?”

“Still working but I think she would be home in about an hour.”

He swallows hard and gives her a quiet nod.

“Can you maybe stay?” he asks of her and she smiles, squeezing his hand.

“Of course, I can.” she goes to the other side of the bed and gets on taking her shoes off “As long as you don’t try anything funny.” he chuckles at that but when she pulls the blankets up and lays down next to him he seems to be in pain again. This time her hand ends up on his bicep.

“Hey”

“I’m alright.” he promises “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s everything. I…I really appreciate what you’re doing, Clarke. It means the world to me.” she looks at him and finds his eyes pinned on her “I never apologized for the way I left after you and Jake tried to help me.”

“Bellamy, there’s no need for that.”

“Yes, there is. You are my family too, Clarke and…I treated you badly.”

“You were hurt. You still are.”

“It’s not an excuse for the way I acted.”

“That’s true, but we understand.” her hand reaches and cups his cheek “You’re forgiven, Bellamy. Stop beating yourself up so harshly for everything wrong in the world, okay?”

He smiles and leans into her touch. A shiver runs down her spine but she ignores it and instead closes her eyes and comes closer to him so that her nose is grazing his bare arm. 

“My princess.” he mumbles after a while and she thinks there’s something he wants to say but when her eyes fall on his face again, she realizes he’s simply falling asleep.

Early the next morning she wakes up from the loud crack of the door and finds Aurora peaking in. She seems tired but insists that she’ll be here for the day so Clarke goes back to the farm in order to take care of the horses and the cattle since her dad was away closing another horse deal somewhere upstate.

She only comes back to the Blake’s on the day after that, once Jake’s home and she can afford spending some time with O and Bellamy.

“He’s on the back porch.” Aurora welcomes her with a smile when she opens the door. 

Things seem to be a bit brighter in the Blake’s house even if only just after a day. Octavia’s on the couch watching TV with the sound loud on and the kitchen smelled of Aurora’s famous mac and cheese (both Bellamy and Clarke’s favorite) which meant that if she was taking the time and effort to cook it, then it was in the hopes she’ll boost her son’s appetite.

“He’s up?” Clarke tries to hide her confusion as she takes her shoes off and comes by the couch to hug O from behind and slap a kiss on her cheek that results in the girl trying to get away from her grip, though Clarke knew she secretly enjoyed it.

Aurora nods and hands her two glasses of cold lemonade.

“Nyko helped him to his feet today and he managed to take a shower. He didn’t want to go to bed right after that so he used his crutches to go outside, get some fresh air.”

“So he’s feeling better?”

“I think so, yes. Nyko still says he has to take it easy but a walk around the house or the backyard might actually do him some good as long as he doesn’t overdo it.”

“So we gotta keep an eye on that, right?” Clarke raises an eyebrow and Aurora responds with a sad smile.

“You know him so well.” she nods at the lemonade “He needs to drink more liquids so…”

“On it.” Clarke winks and heads outside.

She finds him sitting on the small wooden bench she knows he made himself when he was fifteen and fancied himself a carpenter. 

He doesn’t notice her at first, staring straight ahead and obviously engulfed in his thoughts. 

There was a blanket covering his lap, probably a courtesy of Aurora but if anything, he seemed even paler to her today than he did the other day. The ghost of the pain in his life has left a permanent mark on his body and it was quite easy to be noticed how much he suffered still.

How much he’ll never stop suffering, Clarke thought to herself but shook her head and announced her presence.

“Hey.” he looks up and gives her a soft smile before she circles around his spread out legs and sits next to him, handing him the cold glass. At first he shakes his head so she simply puts it down before turning to him with a serious expression on her face “Your mom’s orders” she points at the lemonade “So you better drink it.”

He nods but keeps staring ahead, still seemingly thinking over something.

“Feeling better?” she dares ask and he shrugs.

“That’s all that anyone wants to know these days, isn’t it?” there’s no malice in his voice, nothing snappy. On the contrary, she catches something else she can’t pinpoint-it was as if he sounded resigned, tired, but not just from the pain, that much was evident.

“That’s because they care about you, Bellamy.” her hand covers his and his head falls down on them for a moment before it resumes it’s initial position, staring right up ahead.

Clarke tries not to feel disappointed when he doesn’t intertwine his fingers with hers so instead she focuses on paying closer attention to him, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“What’s on your mind?”

He doesn’t respond right away, instead his hand finally responds to her touch and he turns his palm up to wrap his fingers around. He feels cold to the touch for the first time in a while, so cold, she actually shivers.

“Remember Bashful?”

“Your first horse?” she vaguely recalls him. 

Bellamy was nine at the time, maybe almost ten, just when he started working at their farm. Bashful was a really old horse, dark brown with a white muzzle and socks. He was the last memory Bellamy had of his dad, but Clarke only found out about it later. 

One time when Bellamy was riding Bashful to their ranch, the horse tripped over something, a rock probably and fell down hard, breaking two of his legs. Bellamy was thrown over really harsh too, it was probably one of his first serious injuries but after a few minutes of unconsciousness, he got to his feet, ignored the blood coming down his face and rushed to Bashful.

When he couldn’t bring him up to his feet, he started yelling, looking for help but eventually he had to run to the Griffins and bring Jake with him, face covered in blood and tears. 

“I’ve been dreaming about him lately.” Bellamy continues and she’s brought back to the present after getting lost in her own thoughts “How he fell.” he turns away from her once again “I was riding him so hard that day, I was really late for work at your place and I…I pushed and pushed and he tripped over.”

“Bellamy-”

“And then when I saw him-” he chokes a bit on his words and Clarke tightens her grip on his hand “I couldn’t focus on him at first, I had hit my head really hard but when I did…my eyes fell on his and Clarke” he turns to her again but his eyes are on their hands once more, he just can’t bear facing her, though she can feel the tears falling down on their intertwined hands “He was in so much pain.”

“Bellamy, don’t do this to yourself. Why are you even thinking about it now?” she asks genuinely and he shrugs.

“Because I remember it all so clearly-the way he struggled, how he was trapped in his pain, unable to get up. He knew then…he knew we’d…kill him.”

She takes her hand away only to take the glasses down to the ground, then quickly comes closer, wraps her arms over his neck and pulls his head to her chest.

“Shh” she knows how the story goes. Her father goes there, tells Bellamy Bashful was never going to stand on his feet again, let alone run, gripping his shoulder and kneeling down to face him, explaining that they had to end his suffering.

“He kept looking at me and I don’t think he wanted me to save him. He just wanted comfort.”

“You held him?” she asks quietly as she runs her fingers through his curls.

“Pulled his head to my knees and stroked him until he was calm enough. He was scared at first but I kept telling him it will be fine. Lying to him.”

“You did your best to help him when he needed it most.” she whispers in his ear and he leans even more into her touch. She had the answer to her earlier questions-she knew why he was thinking about Bashful. He felt as helpless as him-hurt, broken, fucked beyond repair.

When he calms down a bit and she pulls him away only to cup his cheeks, she looks into his teary eyes.

“What’s really on your mind, hmm?” her forehead touches his and if this was a different situation she knows her lips might end up on his, her hands might pull him so close, she would feel his beating heart, but this is what they got right now.

“There’s only one way from here on.” he whispers and his head falls but she picks his chin up again.

“No.” her answer is so harsh, leaving no trace of doubt behind her words “This is not it for you, Bellamy.”

“Look at me, Clarke.” he pulls away now, trying to distance himself from her, gesturing to his fucked up body “How do you think this ends?”

“With you alive.” she insists but he just shakes his head “You’re not a damn horse, Bellamy. You’ll get back to your feet, you will be better!”

“Until I’m worse again. And then better some. And then bad again.” he bites his lip “For the rest of my goddamn life, Clarke.”

“Listen to me-” the anger in her voice is evident now “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Clarke-”

“I’m not gonna let you, okay?” she cuts him off “So stop this! Stop talking like you’re living your last few good months. You have a long life ahead of you, Bellamy.”

He sighs, giving it up for the moment mostly for her. He doesn’t want to upset her anymore, he knows he shouldn’t have said as much anyway, he should’ve kept all his thoughts at bay, so he turns away, leans on the bench and stares ahead again.

He knows the truth, though. She’s saying this now but she’s halfway through college and after she won’t just stick around and have a life in the ranch of a small town. Clarke was brave, fearless, ready to conquer the world-be a doctor, an artist, maybe both at the same time. She had a future-bright, beautiful, soft like the first sun rays coming through his window in the morning, stroking his cheek.

“Wanna take a walk down to the fence?” she asks out of nowhere a few minutes later when she sees she won’t get any reaction out of him after what just happened.

He raises his eyebrow at her, surprised that she’s suggesting it but nodding along.

“Okay.”

The fence is not that far, but still, they have to conquer quite the distance and when she helps him to his feet, he’s not exactly stable, but he leans steadily on his crutches and takes slow and small steps.

He struggles with the three stairs of the back porch but she grips his elbow to steady him when he staggers. They stop more than a few times on their way there. She can see it’s quite the strain on him but she doesn’t want to stop him. Tentatively she asks if he’s okay and when he makes sure that he is they keep going. 

He keeps reassuring her that yes, he can do this, but every time they stop, she can see how pale his face is, how he sways on his feet so hard she’s afraid he’ll fall down and she won’t be able to get him up.

They make it there by some kind of miracle. He simply drops the crutches on the ground and leans on the fence, his arms hanging on the other side but still holding him standing somehow.

“We shouldn’t have done this.” Clarke voices her concerns as her hand rests on his back moving up and down while he struggles to breathe.

“I’m not sure…I can make it back.” the admission is a lot coming from him so he just squeezes his eyes shut when he lets it out into the world, trying to hide his shame.

“Bell! Bell! You’re walking!”

_Oh no._

Octavia comes running towards them with all of her childhood energy and enthusiasm, a bright smile on her face, pure happiness, unmarked by the realization that her brother is barely standing there.

The kid saw what she wanted to see-after days of him being trapped inside sleeping, looking more dead than alive, she finally finds him outside walking, giving her the most reassuring smile he can.

Somehow Bellamy finds the strength to turn around and lean his back on the fence as Octavia jumped around them and climbed on the white fence screaming like an animal, out of pure joy.

“Easy there, little monkey!” he ruffles her hair and she jumps on the other side of the fence before she climbs again and leans over him.

“Can we play horse already?” she asks and Clarke swallows hard when she sees the way Bellamy’s face falls at his sister’s request.

“Not yet, O, I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, maybe Clarke can carry me around and we can play?”

“In a minute, sweetheart.” Clarke promises and reaches to tuck a strand of hair from O’s cheek “Why don’t you go inside and call your mom, Bell and I want to show her something.” she lies so convincingly she doesn’t think the kid will question her at all but O tilts her head to the side like a lost puppy and raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

“O, run along and Clarke will give you some ice cream in a second.” Bellamy who’s barely holding on, smiles in his sister’s direction and urges her but not before kissing her cheek and hugging her awkwardly with his one good hand.

The thing was when she disappeared in the house, he did try to walk back, but with his arm fucked up and not just his leg, he was dangerously swaying in one direction, almost about to drown like a ship in the sea so she reaches out, removes his crutch and wraps his good arm over her shoulders to prevent it.

“I don’t wanna fall, Clarke.” he whispers, the sweat is already ticking down his face and he’s heaving once more. 

Unless Aurora came sooner, they’d both collapse on the ground mostly because even though Bellamy has lost weight, he was still Bellamy-bigger and heavier than her, bulky and strong. 

She couldn’t support him on her own.

“You won’t. I got you.”

“We’re about to roll in the grass like a bunch of horny fourteen year olds unless we go back to the fence so I can lean on it.”

“Did you ever roll in the grass with a girl when you were fourteen?” making fun out of a horrible situation was always her strong suit and soon enough a light smile appears on his face.

But they’re interrupted by Aurora’s frantic calls.

“Bellamy!” they look up to find her rushing down the stairs and coming their way. She quickly assess the situation and takes the other crutch away only to do the same thing Clarke had a minute ago. 

“What happened? I told you he shouldn’t tire himself out!” Clarke had seen Aurora angry before but never at her so the fact that she’s accusing her of not taking good care of him, takes her by surprise.

“I-”

“Mom, it’s not her fault. I insisted.”

“She should know better.”

“I’m sorry.” Clarke mumbles as they start moving slowly towards the house, basically taking in most of his weight as they dragged him back.

“Mom, stop this! Clarke was only trying to help me like you asked her to.”

In her anger, Aurora doesn’t notice how his bad leg drags across the grass but Clarke sees the way he purses his lips and tries to bite back the pain.

“Hey, let’s take a second.” she stops and he exhales when the pressure of it all falls from his shoulders.

“We shouldn’t. It’s too hot, he needs to get inside.”

“Mom-”

“What? You’re already sweating. Nyko said-”

“It’s from the pain, not the heat, dammit.” he snaps and the minute he does his face falls in regret “I’m sorry. Let’s just…you’re right let’s just get inside.”

They get him in but when they turn for his room he shakes his head and pleads.

“I don’t want to lie down yet, please.”

“Bell-” Clarke tries sadly but he shakes his head stubbornly. “On the couch then?”

“Okay.” he agrees and though she can sense Aurora’s not happy with it, they lower him there right next to Octavia, who’s watching her cartoon and already blabbing something enthusiastically. He pulls her to his side and listens to her talk while Clarke and Aurora go behind the kitchen counter. 

For a while they just clean and dry the dishes from last night and when they both simultaneously turn around to check on what Bellamy and O are up to, they find him lying on his back and her resting on his stomach, her eyes barely opened but still pinned to the TV screen while his chest rose up and down slowly and he just barely snored which was so adorable to Clarke she could not not smile fondly at him.

“I’m sorry about earlier.” Aurora leans on the counter and stares at her hands gripping the edge.

“It’s okay.”

“Ever since the accident-” she shook her head and closed her eyes. Clarke could feel this was important for her to say so she took her wrist and pulled her to the table so they could be sitting. “It’s horrible to say this but I never used to worry too much about him before.”

Clarke squeezes her hand in reassurance that she’s not judging her.

“As a baby he barely cried, like he didn’t want to bother me at all. He ate well and then when we didn’t have much, he never complained even if he was hungry. He was such a good boy.”

“I’m trying to imagine stubborn Bellamy like this.” Clarke comments quietly and Aurora smiles.

“Oh he was stubborn back then too, but he has always been so caring. He’d come and cover me up with a blanket when I fell asleep on the table and when his dad died and I buried myself in work and…the drugs I-”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. He was alone that entire time. You know he tried finding work a year before he started coming to your place. He was just eight at the time. I caught him, brought him home and made him promise he won’t do it again.”

“Bellamy’s a carer, it’s who he’s always been.”

“Yes and when Octavia was born I let them fend for themselves. He was right when he told me that he raised her but I go back and try to figure out where I…where I stopped caring about him.”

“Don’t do this to yourself.” Clarke tries but the older woman just shakes her head and brushes the tears from her cheeks.

“If I’ve paid attention to him, if I had stopped him from the bull riding, told him it’s too dangerous, now none of this would be happening.”

“Unfortunately, you can’t know that.” Aurora finally meets her eyes and Clarke shrugs “All we can do is help out.” she smiles and gives Clarke a quiet nod. 

For a minute they remain like this, consumed by the silence of the kitchen, the cartoon noises and Bellamy’s snores in the living room provided to be a nice and comforting background as they resumed their work and got onto making some cookies just for the sake of it. 

That’s it until they’re shaken by Bellamy’s groans that quickly resolve into yells in seconds that send them rushing to the living room, clothes still covered in flour.

“Mom, what’s happening?” Octavia’s sleepy voice shakes the air around them. She’s sitting up on Bellamy’s stomach and rubbing her eyes, trying to make sense of her brother who was writhing and suffering below her.

“He’s just having a bad dream is all” Aurora grabs her just as Bellamy’s about to toss her on the floor and O wraps herself around her mother who quickly heads for their room. Clarke gives her a look suggesting she’s got this and once they’re out of shot she shakes Bellamy’s shoulders.

His eyes snap open and at first he still seems to be pretty confused but she holds onto his hands and remains on his eye level.

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” Clarke whispers and he still moves his head around frantically looking for something “Bellamy, hey, hey, come on!” her hands move to his cheeks, cupping them, her thumb brushing away the sweat and tears, her nails just barely digging in his skin in a desperate attempt to bring him back to reality.

“Just breathe, okay?” she asks and he tries hard to do so but it takes more than five minutes for him to quiet down by which time he’s exhausted and he simply falls back on the couch, closing his eyes briefly and trying to get it together. 

She sits by his side and her fingers trace the curls on his forehead, ghost over his cheek again, wanting to provide him the much needed comfort. 

“Octavia?” he asks all of a sudden, probably finally remembering that he fell asleep with her resting on his chest which sends him into a new wave of panic.

“She’s fine!” Clarke reassures putting her hand on his chest and gently pushing him down. He throws an arm over his eyes and still struggles to catch his breath.

“I scared her, didn’t I?”

“I don’t think so.” she keeps rubbing her hand over his arm while he refuses to meet her eyes yet again, mostly out of shame, she assumes and she wishes she could tell him he never has to hide for her. “

Wanna tell me what it was about?” he shakes his head and sits up again.

“Can you help me to my room?”

He’s shaking while they walk there, it’s like his entire body is full of tremors and he can’t stop it even if he wanted to. 

It reminded Clarke of watching movies where someone was whipped or being shocklashed but in this case the cause and the result were all the same-pain. 

His body doesn’t quiet down even when he’s lying in bed on his bad side-as if he was trying to punish himself by applying pressure to the worst and most painful parts of his body and she knows she can’t fight him on it so without a word, Clarke simply lays down behind him and spoons him. 

He finally lets himself cry then and it’s the first time she sees him completely break down since the accident. 

Sure, he had cried before but it was always as if he was so ashamed to let his tears go that he’d brush them as fast as he can and hide away from her. 

Now he sobbed so hard, the sounds escaping his lips made Clarke’s heart skip beats. She had thrown a leg over his and her arm was pulling his upper body to her chest while the back of his head ended up somewhere just below her chin.

“It’s okay, it’s alright, Bell, it’s alright.” she kept saying but after a while she stopped, figuring her touch was enough comfort of him and words or empty promises couldn’t do shit to help him out. 

He just needed to know he had someone in his corner, someone to hold onto and she’d be there for him.

When he finally quieted down, she brushes the tears off his face and hums in his ear.

“Tell me something you wish you could do right now?” she asks of him while his body keeps just barely trembling and he still struggles to breathe. 

Her hand ends up on is forehead, moving the hair away, the curls always inevitably falling back down, stubbornly fighting her every attempt to tame them.

He closes his eyes, probably trying to imagine the best possible scenario and he unconsciously tries to bury his cheek in her hand.

“Now all my dreams are bad, you know?” he says instead of giving her a direct answer, his voice is just so barely audible she has to lean in closer to her him. 

“Oh yeah?”

“Sometimes I dream I’m riding Stubborn down your fields until we end up near the river and I hop off of him, jump inside and he looks at me all funny as I splash water all over him.” he’s smiling now and she kisses his head as she too closes her eyes imagining him doing all that “The best feeling in the world is your hair being wet and you riding your horse and that nice tingling you get all over you as you rush him to run faster and you feel so…free.”

“You know that’s doable, right?” she whispers bringing him back to reality as much as he doesn’t feel like it “You can ride Stubborn again. Maybe not as fast. And we can still go down by the river and have fun-you, me, Octavia, maybe even your mom.”

“It won’t be the same.” he says back and her heart breaks.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe all it can be now is imperfect. But it doesn’t mean it still won’t feel good.”

He nods and for a while they just stay like this until both his and her breathing eases out. She falls asleep thinking that she truly believes what she told him. 

That in the morning when they wake up, she’ll ask him if he feels like going to the farm with her, how maybe they can walk to the stables and he can pet Moreen or watch O ride her. 

Maybe he can smile, even laugh and her heart will flutter at the sound of seeing him happy even if just for a brief moment.

In the morning, she wakes up from him struggling underneath her, groaning and when she asks him what it is he squeezes his eyes shut and speaks but just barely again.

“I can’t feel my leg.”

And all her dreams come crashing down.

* * *

On Monday he goes to the PT center for the first time. She comes with him cause Aurora has work and O is left with Jake at the farm, brushing Moreen and pestering Clarke’s dad all day long, which he actually enjoys.

Nyko welcomes them but only to take them to the place itself where they meet Diyoza, his doctor who seems like a real badass and in Clarke’s opinion exactly the kind of person Bellamy needs as a doctor.

They start off with simple stuff, mostly massages like what Nyko did to him back home while Clarke mostly sits back and watches, helping out only here and there when Diyoza asked her to.

“You’re really stiff. Never done any PT after your surgery?”

“He was too stubborn for that.”

“I like your girlfriend.” Diyoza says with a smile as she bends his knee and both Bellamy and Clarke blush.

“She’s…she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Too bad, you could use a girl like that in your life.” Clarke looks away trying to hide behind the hair falling over her face and Bellamy nervously clears his throat. 

“Nyko said you don’t take any painkillers?” Bellamy shakes his head and Diyoza nods seemingly impressed with that fact “How do you deal with the pain then?”

“He mostly just hides away in his room and pretends everything’s fine.” Clarke answers for him again when Bellamy doesn’t offer anything but a simple shrug. 

Diyoza helps him up into a sitting position then and he sways violently like he usually did when he stood up too fast. Clarke reaches out to grab his hand, already predicting what was going to happen and Diyoza smiles knowingly once more but doesn’t comment on it, which Clarke’s extremely grateful for. 

“When does it hurt the most? Morning? Evening?”

“Mostly morning.”

“Can’t get up on your own?” she suggests as she helps him up standing and he holds onto her like a lifeline. 

He groans in response and Diyoza shakes her head clearly unhappy with his condition. 

“Okay, take a step forward” she asks after she pulls away from him and only holds both his hands. He’s barely keeping himself together, Clarke can tell and she wants to do nothing but rush in and help him but Diyoza shakes her head in quiet warning and Bellamy takes a very stiff, very small step forward. 

“See those rails over there?” Diyoza asks and points with her head to a place just about ten steps away from them. “Think we can get there?”

“Yeah.” Diyoza smiles, liking his attitude. It was clear she enjoyed a good fighter but Clarke hoped she could see that Bellamy’s recklessness and stubbornness could sometimes do him more harm than good. 

“We don’t have to, we can get only halfway. There’s no rush.” she reminds him but he shakes his head with determination as he takes on another step. 

It looks to Clarke much like the other day in their backyard-he was getting paler by the minute. 

It wasn’t just his leg, Nyko had explained to her and Aurora one day after checking up on him and leaving him to rest. 

There were too many things working against him whenever he tried to do even simple things. 

His leg was fucked up yes, but it all came from his back which hurt even when he was lying down. 

His arm’s movement was very limited, he couldn’t rely on it. Couldn’t use to to lean onto because it’d just betray him and he’d end up on the floor. 

And all of that was complimented by the fact that his head made everything even harder. His blood pressure made his heart go crazy, caused the world to spin, for him to black out sometimes or it hurt so hard his vision blurred and he had trouble breathing through the pain. 

It wasn’t going to get better, Nyko had reminded what the doctor had told Aurora on the day of the accident after his first surgery, but it could be managed.

“I’ll make it.” he says through his teeth and Diyoza just keeps watching, observing his every move very carefully.

At some point he stops for a second, taking his breath and his whole body is shaking again.

“Bell, we can-”

“No, Clarke, I got it.”

“You don’t have to prove yourself to me, cowboy.” Diyoza reminds him “This isn’t about pushing yourself. There’s no prize to be won at the end. You won’t impress me if we get to the rails and you won’t disappoint me if we don’t.”

He shakes his head and takes another step. He just needed a few more and he’d be there. 

“It ain’t for you. It’s for me.” he utters when he takes the last few steps and Diyoza carefully maneuvers his hands to the rails which he grips harder than anything Clarke had ever seen. His bad arm shook so he mostly leaned to his right hoping it’d be enough to keep him standing for now. 

“You shouldn’t have pushed yourself so much.” Clarke says crossing her arms, not sure if she’s more mad at him or Diyoza. 

This first time was supposed to just be some massaging, some light exercises. It had taken him fifteen minutes to get from his room to the truck before they came here and even after that he spend the drive down to the center trying to get his breathing back to normal.

“No he shouldn’t have.” Diyoza agrees and Clarke raises an eyebrow in her direction wondering why the hell she allowed this when she knew it was wrong but she doesn’t want to make this worse so she keeps her mouth shut .

“Now he knows how bad it feels when he does it.” 

“So this was…a lesson?” he asks smirking as he keeps trying to hold onto the rails.

“More or less.” Diyoza looks at Clarke again “Can you bring that wheelchair over here before he passes out and I have to hospitalize him for a concussion.”

“I don’t use wheelchairs.” Bellamy raises his voice for the first time since he came here and Clarke can tell he has guts cause Diyoza looks at him like she wants to murder him.

“You do if you want to leave this place with me still as your doctor.” they stare at each other for a while and when finally Bellamy loses the battle, his head hangs low and Clarke brings in the chair.

She helps him sit and once down Diyoza kneels to his level and gives him a serious look.

“This whole thing only works if you listen to what I have to say, okay? If you don’t follow my rules, I don’t want you here.” Bellamy groans at that annoyed like a fifteen year old who got caught drinking and Clarke unconsciously squeezes his shoulder to try and tame his stubbornness and he huffs like a horse who’s been brushed the wrong way.

“You and I both know that more than half your body hurts like shit, that it’s on fire even now. You can’t hide that. You may think you can but you don’t.”

He grips the sides of the wheelchair with his hands and finally moves his head up.

“Nyko said-” he struggles to speak in between his heavy breathing “It’ll be like this for the rest of my life.”

“He’s right.”

“So tell me what’s the point in this” he desperately needs to make sense of what’s happening, to have one goddamn thing in his life that he can make sense of. Diyoza’s words surprise Clarke as much as they do Bellamy.

“I can’t.” it’s the most sincere thing he’s heard since the accident “Only you can. Only you know why you want to be able to walk the distance we just did and not feel like passing out after, so what’s your reason?”

“My sister.” he says determined “My mother.” then he looks up at Clarke for a brief moment before he faces Diyoza again “My friends.”

“Good.” she nods content with his response “Are you the one taking care of him?” Diyoza asks next standing up to face Clarke now. 

Even though they are almost the same height Clarke feels like she is five and is starting to relate to Bellamy’s behavior from a minute ago.

“Me and his mom yeah.”

“Clarke’s not taking care of me.” he interrupts them and she notices him gripping the wheelchair again in frustration.

“Who helped you bathe the other day, you ass.”

His ears go red at that but he just his chin stubbornly.

“That’s only temporary. You got stuff to do, college.” he turns back to Diyoza “It’s my mom, I guess.”

“His mom works forty hours a week. I’m there on most days because he’s my friend and I don’t treat my friends like crap.” she steps on his good foot and he ouches but just barely which she considers the end of the discussion “What do I need to know?”

“There will be days he won’t be able to make it down here for PT so it won’t be a bad idea if you or his mom know how you can help him out in such moment.”

“Nyko showed me some stuff and I’m pre-med so I’m willing to learn whatever you have to teach me.”

“Great.” Diyoza pushes the wheelchair back to the cot he was first lying on and they help him get on it without much fuss from his side. 

Diyoza shows Clarke a bunch of things she can try out and Clarke asks a lot of questions.

“Can I do this in the morning when he’s really numb?”

“You most definitely can.”

“I’m tired.” Bellamy admits and Clarke has hardly ever heard him say that except when he wanted to hide away in his room so that his mom doesn’t know how bad the pain is. She can see right through him-this first time was pretty tough on him.

“What about the fever?”

“He gets feverish often?” Diyoza carefully lays his leg and reaches for his file on her desk, as if she’s missed on something.

“Can we go home now?” he asks again but gets ignored when Diyoza’s eyes never leave the papers before her.

“So he gets inflammations then.” she shakes her head as if she just found another piece of the puzzle she needs to think where to put “His spinal taps probably. Okay, you need to roll over so I can check your back.” Diyoza drops the file and bosses him around. 

He groans but obliges her and Clarke can tell that when she touches him it hurts before he shivers like he’s been shock lashed again. She wants to reach for his hand but it’s on the other side, trapped between him and the wall so her fingers end up in his messy curls, massaging his head, bringing him back to a reality in which he’s not alone. 

“Sorry, I know this is a lot but I gotta check this.”

“Hold on, Bell.” Clarke whispers and he nods but she can see that Diyoza’s actions are making it so painful for him that his eyes fill with tears he’s trying hard not to shed and embarrass himself in front of the doctor. 

“So far it’s okay” Diyoza says and helps him roll on his back “But if it gets worse you might need surgery.” at that his eyes grow wide and he bites his lip so he doesn’t have to say anything. 

Diyoza lets them stay by for another ten minutes while he gathers his strength and on the way home he’s quieter than usually but she knows better than to pressure him into talking.

* * *

The next month and a half passes like this: Bellamy goes to PT three times a week, sometimes with Clarke, other times with his mom and when there’s no one to take him there, he calls Miller and asks him for a favor. 

One time when Clarke’s too busy at the farm and Aurora is working a double shift, he takes the bus downtown but because PT is really exhausting and usually after it, he needs to get some rest, he ends up sitting on the bus stop in front of the hospital for hours before he gathers up the strength to stand up and catch the bus, then walk all the way home. 

By the time he makes it, Aurora is ready to call the police on him and makes him promise he won’t do anything like this again.

Summer turns into early fall and Clarke goes back to school as well as O which is a relief for Bellamy as his sister can finally put all that energy into good use. 

Octavia herself is quite sad cause she’s gotten used to running around, riding Moreen, helping Clarke at the farm or spending time with Bell at home. 

Bellamy’s getting better with every passing week and soon he starts pestering his mom about work again. 

Diyoza is still against it. Says he could use at least another month but when one day Clarke and he come home and find the electricity cut off, it’s the finale straw for Bellamy and not even Aurora can talk him out of it.

Next Monday he starts working at Kane’s diner on the other side of town. 

He has to catch two buses to get there and wake up at five which he says is not really a problem as he doesn’t sleep much at all. 

He works in the kitchen with the only other cook called Murphy, who’s a vet and misses his left arm. 

“Move that butt, Blake, we’re full!” he is sarcastic 99 % of the time, pushes him like no one else and it drives Bellamy up the wall especially in the first few days. 

Murphy really wants him to be fast but sometimes Bellamy drops something on the floor and they have to start all over.

“I don’t have an arm and you don’t see me dropping shit!” he’d curse as he picks the pan from the floor “Go sit and chop some onions, cowboy.”

Bellamy hates him but he knows he has to get used to him. Kane is nice, he often comes by, checks on his diners and the workers every day, asks them if everything’s alright and if they need something. 

Though Diyoza is against it at first, Bellamy assures her that Kane doesn’t push them. 

He works with lots of vets or people who got hurt like Bellamy, farmers, ex-cowboys. 

He pays attention and when he notices Bellamy swaying on his feet, he sends him to sit and chop stuff himself which Bellamy hates but is still a necessity and more than Cage ever cared about him. (Cage never cared actually).

The first two weeks were hard but the more time passed, the more he grew callous to Murphy’s comments and soon together they were bickering as the flipped burgers in sync.

Clarke started passing by only on the weekends since she was busy with college the rest of the time but he often had to work during that time especially if he wanted to get extra money, so they didn’t see each other as much.

She pestered him to get a new phone so she could text him more but he insisted he was a technological disaster and kept on using his old button Nokia only so he could get a call from his mom or if O needed something.

He was glad. Relieved actually, that Clarke wasn’t wasting her time on him. That she was back at college, thinking about art, drawing or studying pre-med. 

A few days before college started, she came by and they spend the evening on the back porch, talking and drinking beer and she had admitted then that maybe she doesn’t really want to be a surgeon like her mom. That the more time she spent with him in PT the more she thought about becoming a physio therapist. That or a nurse, she still hadn’t decided. 

“What do you think?” she had asked him then and he had smiled. 

It was great listening to someone talk about a future they could still have. A future full of dreams and possibilities, something he’ll never have to think about again. 

He’d be flipping burgers and frying potatoes for the rest of his life and maybe that was okay. It’s how it should be.

“I think you’d be great at both.” he assures with a kind smile and for once he’s glad she’s a little buzzed so she can’t see through him and his thoughts.

“But I’ve helped you with PT, do you think I’m good?”

“You want a personal review on your capabilities, princess?” he chuckles and takes a sip of his beer. 

She shrugs suddenly shy but he likes seeing her like this so he doesn’t cut her any slack. Her cheeks getting red out of embarrassment or shyness didn’t happen often but it was one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen in his life. 

“I guess.”

“You’re good at it. Your touch is gentle but you also know when and how to push me when I need it.” she relaxes into the bench and pulls the blanket up her lap. 

She always loved being warm, always pushed herself a little further into him when they shared his bed, always refused to leave the sheets early in the morning. 

“I’m sure you’ll be a great nurse too.”

“Thank you.” she reaches out to squeeze his hand and then they stare ahead for a while, comfortable with the silence surrounding them. Until she speaks up again and his body tenses.

“You know you can go to school one day.”

He laughs at that but it’s cold and cruel, like he can’t believe she could come up with something like that. 

“Please, princess.”

“I know you’ve thought about it. You forget I’ve known you since we were nine. And you’ve read more books than anyone I have ever met-”

“Clarke stop it.” he cuts her off and drinks the rest of his beer in one go “You know it’s not happening.”

“I don’t see why not. Bellamy, you were valedictorian.”

“Because it’s over for me.” he raises his voice and it’s the first real fight they’ve had ever since he passed out at their farm. 

Sure, they’ve bickered, they’ve argued, mostly she had scolded him about being stupid and not taking care of himself but this was different, it was real. 

Everything before that was light hearted and teasing.

“I don’t have dreams to fulfill, they’ve all crashed and burned that day I got thrown off. I am not going around wondering if to choose whether to be a bull rider or a horse trainer. I can’t do shit!”

“Bellamy-” he can see she wants to fight, convince him, make him see her point but he won’t do this to himself. 

“No, Clarke! Stop this. It’s done. I’m going to be flipping burgers and working odd jobs for the rest of my life.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say. You don’t have to.”

“Yes, I do. Have you seen my mother? Clarke, she’s working so hard she is barely standing on her feet. And Octavia’s still a kid, she need so many things!”

“I get that but-”

“No, you don’t. I’m sorry but you don’t.” he shakes his head and she can see he’s not trying to be mean, just desperate to get to the point “You have everything, your dad, he can pay for whatever you need and you don’t have to worry about yourself or the farm or any of those things.”

She swallows hard and looks away.

“We barely make ends meet. They cut off the water last week and you know about the electricity. Half her paycheck goes for my medication, Clarke. She barely puts any food on the table and when she does, it’s for me and O. I can see her, she’s barely eating.”

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut and tries to swallow down her tears-it’s true, she knows he’s right. 

She has noticed it herself which is why she never comes to the house empty handed-she always stops by for burgers on her way here or buys the necessities. 

Aurora knows about it and she’s squeezed her hands between hers and thanked her. Bellamy has seen it too, though he doesn’t know the extent it goes, to so he hasn’t fought with her about it but on the days he was feeling better and strong enough to walk, he’s always turned his head in the other direction whenever she came in carrying a bag of something to eat.

“So please don’t tell me how bright my future is.”

“Okay.” she agrees and he’s surprised that she doesn’t fight him anymore. 

When he looks at her, he can see the tears in her eyes and knows he’s hurt her real bad this time but she’s trying not to let it show. 

After a few minutes, she gets up, mumbles a quiet goodbye and leaves.

* * *

They ignore each other for the next few weeks and it gets easier when he keeps telling himself that it was necessary for him to push her away sooner rather than later, but despite it all she still checks on him. 

Sends him texts that he takes too long to respond to, even though he checks them out right away and that earns him Murphy’s scowls. 

It’s just that he feels like a total dick and doesn’t know what to say that won’t sound too dumb or pretentious. He knows he overstepped but he’s not sure what to do.

It all comes down to him coming home and finding O sick with the flu. 

He’s so worried, he goes out of his mind, spends half his paycheck for the week on medicine and think that maybe they can make it through when his mom gets sick too. Really sick. 

He has to force her to stay in bed one morning when she almost passes out in his arms and won’t stop coughing so he calls Kane and tells him she’ll not be coming in this week.

He’s so worried, he calls Nyko but the doctor never picks up so he has to reside to the next best thing.

“Hey, Bellamy, is everything alright?” she picks up right away and judging by the noise around her she must be still in college, maybe between classes.

“Why does something have to be wrong, can’t I just call?”

“No, it’s just I…well we haven’t talked in a while so I just assumed-” he hates that he makes her doubt herself and he knows deep down he’s only being an ass because he’s worried as hell so he cuts to the chase.

“Actually, there’s something.”

“Are you alright?”

“It’s not me, it’s mom and O. Mostly mom. They got the flu and I think O is getting better but mom won’t stop coughing. I think it’s really bad.”

“How long have they been sick?”

“Just a few days but O’s fever broke last night. I tried calling Nyko but he is not picking up so I just-”

“I’m on my way.” she promises.

“You don’t have to. I know you got classes, so-”

“Bellamy” she cuts him off “I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, princess.”

She’s here forty minutes later and he takes her to his mom’s bedroom where both O and Aurora are resting under a pile of blankets. 

Despite it all he can finally say that he feels like he did before-now he has to take care of him instead of them fussing over his inability to walk or hold something.

“You do know I’m just pre-med, right?” Clarke says when she takes out her stethoscope and makes him help Octavia sit up. “I’m no expert here.”

“I didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay, it will be fine.” she promises with a weak smile. He turns out to be right-Octavia’s definitely doing better, her fever’s broken and she’s just tired and sluggish, coughing but not so badly. 

Aurora on the other hand is delusional, feverish and when she listens to her lungs, she shakes her head at Bellamy.

“We need to take her to the hospital, Bell.” he nods and together they help her put on some clothes.

“Bellamy, what’s happening?” she asks and he grips her shoulder as he wraps his jacket over her weak shoulders, then he leans down to put her shoes on. 

He has to sit on the floor because he can’t kneel with his bad leg and Clarke would’ve offered if he wasn’t so insistent on doing this. 

Meanwhile she helps O get dressed on the other side of bed. They have to take her too, because they have no one to leave her with, plus Bellamy wants her checked out too even if Clarke thinks she’s okay. 

“We’re taking you to the hospital. Your cough doesn’t sound good.”

“No, I’m okay. We don’t have to go.”

“Mom, please, stop it.” he places his hand on her knee and thankfully she’s too sick to fight but she still tries to argue.

“We don’t have the money.”

“You’re not thinking about that right now, okay?” he cuts her off and when they’re done Clarke comes by his side and reaches for his shoulder.

“I’ll drive.”

“Okay, I’ll carry them to the truck.”

“It’s probably best if we take my car, that way we can all fit.” Clarke suggests and he contemplates it for a few minutes before he nods and gets himself back on his feet. 

“Bellamy, you can’t carry me.” Aurora tries to fight as she attempts standing up but almost falls face down in the processes. 

He puts his arm on her shoulders and under her knees and wraps her in his arms. Only then does he realize how much weight she’s lost-she’s all bones, he can feel her ribs pressed to his chest and when he looks down to her she seems like a ghost. 

“You really shouldn’t, Bell, she’s right.” Clarke who’s picked up O in her arms so she could spare him this and is already heading to the door scolds mildly not that he pays her any attention.

“It’s okay, mom, I got you.”

They put them on the backseat and on the way to the hospital, both of them fall asleep. Bellamy’s nervous as hell, tapping his hand on his knee and she can see he’s in some pain too because he grips his knee with his bad hand but she’s not sure if she should pick the subject now, or at least not until they know his mom will be fine.

When they get there, it turns out Nyko’s on shift which is why he wasn’t picking up his phone. He checks on them both and while they’re waiting outside the rooms, Bellamy paces up and down the hallway, dragging his bad leg behind and running his fingers through his hair. 

“You should sit down.” Clarke suggests patting the place next to her but he just shakes his head “Come on, Bell, come here” she reaches out and he puts his hand in hers, letting her drag him down. 

He exhales and leans his head back on the wall.

“Thank you for coming. I know you have tons of stuff to do.”

“Not really, I’m almost through with my midterms” she promises rubbing her thumb up and down his hand. “I’m glad you called even if the circumstances are not that good.”

He nods and takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb up and down to ground himself or to maybe distract himself from his own pain. She might have not been around for a while but she can still see it clear as day-he hurt.

“How’s work going?” if they were going to be stuck here a while, the least she could do is try to help calm him down while his mind conjured up the most horrible scenarios.

“It’s good. I like it.”

“And your co-worker…Murphy was it?”

He laughs at that but shrugs like a sheepish fifteen year old.

“He’s a piece of shit but I think we’ll make it work.” 

“You know…” she swallows hard and stares at their intertwined hands, the motion of his thumb calming her down, giving her the strength to ask what has been on her mind for a while now .

“Diyoza called me last week.” his eyes snap to hers and he stands up a bit straight as if preparing himself for a fight “She said you’ve been coming less and less often and skipped an entire week recently.”

“It’s just because of mom and O. I was worried about them so I forgot about PT.” she’s surprised he doesn’t argue harder with her “I’ll go next week.”

“Bellamy you know I can drive you if you need or take care of O if there’s no one else to and maybe-”

“Thanks.” now his voice is colder, firmer, trying to tell her the subject’s over with “I’ve got it.”

Just as she opens her mouth to try and pressure him about not taking care of himself, Nyko comes out of the room and they both stand up, Bellamy swaying at the motion which doesn’t go unnoticed by the doctor.

“Please, sit.” 

“What’s going on? Are they alright?” Nyko smiles at Bellamy’s stubbornness and settles down on the seat next to him just to prove his point. 

Still, he doesn’t move right away so Clarke has to tug his wrist and force him back down.

“Clarke was right. Octavia’s through with the worst of it. I’ve prescribed some medication you can keep giving her and I’d keep her out of school for the rest of the week just to be sure.” Bellamy visibly relaxes at that and Clarke finds his fingers, squeezing his hand in quiet support. 

Our of the many things that scared Bellamy Blake in the world, his sister not being fine was always something that send him into a circle of bad and irrational decisions as well as guilt and self-blame for months, not just weeks.

“And mom?” Nyko’s face falls at that.

“Well you were right about that too.” he looks at Clarke who swallows hard before focusing back on Bellamy “It started like a flu but turned into pneumonia, I assume it’s because her immune system has been severely compromised.”

“What does that mean?”

“Has she been eating well lately? Resting enough?” Bellamy closes his eyes for a minute and squeezes Clarke’s hand back.

“Not really.”

“She’s weakened.”

“But she’ll be okay?” Clarke asks when she sees Bellamy’s too stunned to do anything now. “Right?”

“I’ve prescribed her antibiotics and I think it’s best if we leave her here for the next few days if not the rest of the week. Her fever’s really high and I don’t like the sound of her cough. The x-rays show her condition is quite serious.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Bellamy asks and his voice is so quiet and broken that Clarke’s not really sure it was him who spoke up.

“No. We just have to hope she’ll react well to the medication and get better.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Bellamy-”

“I need to know, Clarke.” he snaps and turns back to Nyko “Is her life at risk?” Nyko sighs, rubbing his forehead tiredly before speaking up again.

“Technically, yes. If her body doesn’t fight this off, there’s nothing we can do about it and in her weakened state, she is in danger, but we’re not going there yet. 

First we need to see how she responds and think of other options if she doesn’t, so you don’t have to worry about that now, okay?”

“Can I see her?”Bellamy acts as if he didn’t hear anything that Nyko explained and Clarke knows he’s already preparing himself for the worst possible scenario. 

She wishes she could blame him but considering the life he’s had so far, she can’t really bring herself to. 

He had every right to expect the worst because that’s all he’s ever got. For someone who’s future was right ahead of him, who was going to conquer new heights, win competitions, work with horses for the rest of his life, he’s lost everything. 

At first Clarke thinks he’d want to go in alone but when they stand up and he pulls her to the door, one simple glance is enough for her to know he can’t do it on his own and she has no plans of leaving him behind. 

Once inside, they find Aurora already hooked up to various machines and IVs. 

“Octavia’s in the other room, the nurse is helping her get dressed.” Nyko explains and Bellamy nods as he approaches his mother’s bed. 

Aurora seems pale and really small which surprises Clarke too. She’s used to the woman being a hurricane, always going around doing something, bossing Bellamy and Octavia, never really taking a break for a second, so to see her so lifeless and motionless, knocked the breath out of her.

There was an oxygen mask on her face and she seems to be really sleepy because her eyes are barely opened. When he takes her hand in his, though, she smiles and tries to take the mask off but he stops her.

“No, mom, keep it on.” he scolds and sits on the chair near her. Nyko excuses himself after checking her vitals and Clarke sticks to the door, not really sure if she really should be here.

“Octavia?” Aurora whispers and Bellamy shakes his head and squeezes her hand.

“She’s fine. I’ll take her home. You need to stay here, though.”

She furrows her eyebrows at that and tries to move up but he gently pushes her in the pillows.

“No, mom, you need it. You have pneumonia.” he explains and only when Clarke hears his voice break, does she allow herself to move closer and put her hand on his shoulder “You’ll be okay.”

She drags her hand up and pulls the mask down despite his groans.

“Bellamy-”

“You will be okay!” he insists and removes her hand from her face, he won’t take any other possibility but for her to be alright and she doesn’t have the strength to fight him. “I need to take Octavia home but then I’ll be back.”

“No, go home.” she whispers squeezing his hand.

“I’ll come but I need to go to work tomorrow. I’ll be here when I’m done, though.”

Aurora looks up to find Clarke’s eyes then and with one look she can understand what she’s trying to say.

“Bell, we should all go home. Nyko said there’s no point in staying here, she’ll just be resting.”

“No.” he shakes his head stubbornly.

“Listen to her, Bellamy.” Aurora removes her mask again and for a brief moment Clarke sees the badass mother that she is once again. “Go home, take care of your sister. You’ll come see me after work tomorrow, okay?”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Bellamy-”

“No, Clarke, I’m not leaving her.” he insists and she can see there’s no point in arguing with him. 

She nods and gives them some time alone while she goes to get Octavia. The kid is definitely feeling better but she’s still a little sleepy and worried.

“Is mom gonna be alright?” she asks and Clarke tries to give her the most reassuring nod she can muster up right now.

“Yes. She just needs to stay here a few days so her cough goes away.”

“But I don’t.”

“No, you’ll be all good in a few days.” Clarke promises but picks her up in her arms because she feels like O needs it. A few minutes later, Bellamy comes out and first checks on his sister, makes sure she’s fine, before all three of them head back to the truck. 

Bellamy’s all serious, he’s put his wall up high and he is refusing to deal with any emotions that are coming his way faster than a freight train. Clarke knows that side of him but she hasn’t had to deal with it in a while so she’s a little out of practice.

“Can you stay with her tonight?” he asks her once they take off and Clarke has put O on the back seat where she’s playing with her phone and almost falling asleep.

“Of course.”

“I’ll have to take her to work tomorrow with me cause I have no one to leave her to.”

“That’s okay, I don’t have any classes till Monday so I can be with her. She should stay home and recover.”

“I can’t ask that of you.”

“You’re not, I’m insisting on it.” he sighs relieved at that and reaches out to touch her hand just briefly before focusing back on the road. 

He goes back to the hospital that night. And the next day. And the next again. 

Clarke stays with O most of the time but when she can’t, Bellamy has to take her with him to work which doesn’t turn out to be that bad. 

O quite hits it off with Murphy who calls her little gremlin the first time he sees her and O bites back with “You’re ugly.” which makes him laugh because it’s the most honest thing anyone has said to him ever since he came back from war.

Aurora stays in the hospital for over a week before she starts getting better. They try out two different antibiotics but it’s not until the third one that things finally settle down and her lungs start sounding better. 

Bellamy never stops working and taking care of them. He does everything-goes to work, cooks, does the laundry, forces his mom to eat and forbids her from doing anything strenuous when she comes home. 

Clarke knows he hasn’t been to PT not once since Aurora got sick and one night when she comes by to check on them, his mom nods to the backyard.

“He’s in the garden.” they had a small place where they grew vegetable. And when she gets there she gasps at a sight that has nothing to do with tomatoes or Bellamy plowing their land.

“You got chicken!” she exclaims when she finds him by the old hen house that hasn’t been used in over a year. He’s feeding the chicken some grain and there are a few little ones that she can’t help but kneel down to and scoop up in her arms. “When did you buy them?”

“Yesterday. I figured it’s better we got our own fresh eggs instead of spending money buying that shit from the store. And I didn’t actually buy them.” he clears out and she figured as much. They were really tight on the money now with Aurora’s hospital bills and all the medication he had to pay for “Miller gave them to me.”

“O must be ecstatic!”

“Not as much as she is at the prospect of me buying her a horse one day but yeah, she considers it a first step towards something bigger.”

He puts the bucket down and when he starts walking in her direction she can actually see how bad his limp has gotten. Even though she knows the answer to her question, she still asks.

“Haven’t had a hot date with Diyoza in a while, am I right?” he raises his eyebrow but shakes his head as they head for the water pipe. He gestures towards the tomatoes and she assumes he needs to water them so she grabs another bucket to help out.

“I’m fine.”

She reaches out to touch his hand.

“I’m not trying to fight, Bell.” she says seriously “I can help some if you want.”

“There’s no need. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Anyone from a twenty mile radius who could see you walking would disagree.”

“Clarke-” he shakes his head as he carries the bucket to the garden and she follows swiftly behind, spilling half of hers on the way as she tries to catch up with him. 

“Twenty minutes, alright? After dinner.” he sighs and for a while they just stare at each other until he finally relents. 

She helps him out, they even pick some of the tomatoes and cucumbers to bring inside. O is doing homework on the kitchen table and Aurora is resting on the couch, watching TV, scoffing every once in a while just like Bellamy did when watching documentaries. 

Clarke’s not sure she’s ever seen her like this, actually lying in bed all day long.

Clarke’s brought in some burgers which seem to be a feast for them because when she checks the fridge there’s nothing but a few eggs and some stale milk. 

Bellamy barely eats anything and she notices but doesn’t comment on it because for once he’s smiling-O has the natural appetite of a growing kid and so Bellamy gives her his fries and half his burger while his mom picks at her food but still eats most of it under his scrutinizing gaze. 

After, they play some cards and Bellamy sits on the floor though it must be really uncomfortable for him. He starts dozing off mid-game and O pokes him in the ribs, teasing him to wake up.

“Maybe you should go to bed, grandpa.” Clarke jokes but it’s intentional and he knows it. He helps his mom to bed and let’s O watch some more TV as Clarke and he clean up the kitchen and then before he knows what’s really happening, she’s tugging him to his room and pushing him on the bed.

“That’s a little forward, don’t you think, princess?”

“Oh, shut up!” he stops laughing when her hands end up on his leg and help him bend it at the knee which causes him to groan and try to muffle it in his pillow.

“Damn it, Bellamy, it’s bad” she whispers when she touches the stiff muscles and tries to massage it to help ease the pain. It really hurts him when she tries to do the most basic stuff Diyoza and Nyko have taught her until he reaches out to touch her hand.

“That’s enough, princess.”

She’s about to argue with him when they hear the door open and Octavia peek inside already in her PJs, holding her teddy bear under her arm.

“Bell?” she asks and the way she says it Bellamy can guess right away what she wants. His sister never sounds quiet and sweet unless she wants something and it’s either chocolate or sleeping in bed with him.

“Come here, O.” he gestures and her feet pat on the floor only so they can carry her to bed as her brother pulls the blanket up to let her in. 

“I should go now.”

“Nonsense, princess, it’s late. Stay.” he asks of her and it’s the way he looks at her like he really needs it that makes her relent, though she has to get up tomorrow and drive home and then to college for classes. 

Bellamy spoons Octavia and Clarke spoons Bellamy and together they fall asleep.

* * *

In the middle of the night Clarke wakes up from him tossing in bed, trying to find his place and she reaches out to find his hand.

“What is it?” she asks not yet fully opening her eyes until she hears him stifle a groan and she knows, she just does, he’s in pain and he’s trying to find a way to ground himself so she pulls his head to her chest and rubs her hands down his back as he shivers in her embrace like he did that first time when she found him in so much pain she had to straddle him.

“Don’t say it!” he whispers because he knows she was about to “Don’t say it’s going to be okay.”

“I wasn’t going to.” she admits and squeezes her eyes shut at the thought that she was completely helpless-her words, her tight grip on his body, nothing could help Bellamy Blake feel better. 

And she’s not going to lie to him anymore. It wasn’t doing her or him any favors, it was only deluding them into a reality that could never be what she wished it was.

In the morning she wakes up to him gone to work so she doesn’t get to talk to him. 

She finds O and Aurora in the kitchen and though they invite her to get breakfast she denies them. 

“But, mom, I don’t know where Bell put it!” Octavia’s complaining about something while Clarke’s trying to find the keys of her car. “He hasn’t read to me from it for ages!”

“What are you looking for?” Clarke asks, not really sure why she’s offering to help when she’s probably going to be late but Octavia has always been a soft spot for her.

“She’s trying to find the Iliad.” Aurora sighs clearly not awake enough to deal with any of this.

She was still weak on her feet, still coughed and sweated through her clothes at night and even if it wasn’t as horrible as before, it was clear the disease left a mark on her .

“Wants to use it for some school project.”

“I think it might be in his room.” Clarke knows he used to keep it on the nightstand, rereading every so often but she can’t recall seeing it there recently.

“I looked for it but couldn’t find it!” O complains and her face falls “Now Kevin Leighton is going to have a better presentation than me.”

“You’re using the Iliad for a presentation?” Clarke raises an eyebrow and O juts her chin in response like “Hell yeah I am, you got a problem with it?”, so she just shakes her head and heads to his room “Let me try.”

She does turn the room upside down without any success but it’s not until her father’s watch slips from her wrist somehow and ends up on the floor near his bed that she kneels down and her eye catches the yellow book cover under it.

“Bingo!” she smiles to herself and is about to yell to Octavia that she found it when something slips from the pages and the world feels like it’s pulled out from under her feet.

Two envelopes. One says _“For mom and O”_ and the other _“For Clarke.”_

Her fingers tremble when she grabs hers and she swallows hard closing her eyes for a minute debating on what to do. 

She has a sinking feeling inside her, a feeling that tells her she knows exactly what this is and for a second she’s brought back to a month ago when Diyoza talked to her after he was done with PT and Nyko was checking up his vitals.

“Has he ever…talked to someone?” she asks and at first Clarke’s not sure what she means by that so she just stares at her completely blank “A professional. Did he get any kind of mental health help after the accident?”

“No.” Clarke swallows hard and Diyoza takes her further down the hallway away from prying eyes “Why? Is something wrong?”

“Look, his body is fucked up, it truly is. He’ll never be the same and that’s bound to take his toll on him but…there’s something else there too, I can see it.”

“Something else what?”

“Clarke, this boy is drowning.” and it’s when she says it that Clarke realizes it has been right in front of her this whole time “He may be coming here but he’s not doing it for himself. He tries hard and listens to me, to you, but deep down he doesn’t want it.”

“To get better?”

“To get better _for himself._ ” Diyoza emphasizes on the last words “There’s something lingering inside him, something pulling him down and I may be wrong about it or I may be not but…I think it’s worth trying to talk to him about it.”

And she meant to do it. But then they had their fight that night on his back porch and she stopped coming by as much because of college and honestly she buried that conversation so much in the back of her head because she refused to believe Diyoza might’ve had a point.

But now she asked herself as she held his envelope if she might’ve been right. 

She had seen him lie in bed and stare motionless at the ceiling for hours and she’d always thought it was because of the pain, the physical one, but what if she was wrong? 

And that one time she came by and couldn’t find him anywhere inside until she ran panicked to the barn and saw him with the rifle in hand. He had brushed it off, said he was looking for it cause Miller asked to borrow it for a hunting trip and she had been stupid enough to believe him. 

And all those times he got drunk, the night she came to find him and bring him home because his mom asked her to, he had been so sad then, so tired of it all. 

She puts the envelope in her bag, hides the other one where it was and pushes the book back under the bed.

“Sorry, O, couldn’t find it either.” she lies so convincingly she doesn’t even recognize her own voice. 

Her lips touch O’s head, she bids Aurora goodbye and then heads out because she’s not sure she can even continue breathing if she stays another minute in that place.

She doesn’t drive home, deciding she can skip classes today and just letting her hands spin the wheel in whatever direction she feels like. 

It must be an unconscious decision, though, because she ends up going to the old basketball school yard.

It was mostly abandoned now, ever since they merged their school with the one Octavia was going to because it made sense for the district. 

The neighborhood wasn’t that populated as it was before it happened but now it looked even worse. 

Bellamy came here often when they were teenagers, because Miller used to live with his dad in a house nearby and him and a few of the other boys would play ball to pass the time and distract themselves from the heat. 

Clarke liked coming here too with Harper and some of the other girls, doing homework or eating ice cream while they teased the boys for sucking at it. 

She can see Bellamy clear as day now, jumping off the two point in his black shorts, sweat dripping down his bare chest, his curls swinging in every direction. 

She’d often wonder how come he sees anything when he plays with his hair like that but he just swiped his head to the left and smiled at her whenever she tried to boo to distract him from making a point.

A few days after he had come from the hospital after the accident, she had come by their place to keep him company as Aurora had to work and still didn’t trust him to be alone in case he ended up needing something.

She had found him staring at the ceiling that day too and when she asked him if he needed something, she’d expected him to say “No”, like he usually did these days, but instead he’d whispered 

“Can you take me to the old basketball court?” and she should’ve denied him. 

He was still so shaky, with his head wrapped up in a white bandage, his arm scooped up to his chest with a sling and his leg so basically useless, she had no idea how he’d find it in himself to stand but he had and she had agreed.

When they had made it to the benches with extreme effort and patience from his side, she had helped him sit down and asked if he wanted some ice cream.

By the time she came up from the corner shop and handed him a plastic spoon and his favorite chocolate chip he was staring at the playground with eyes full of tears and a sad smile on his face.

“Why did you want us to come here?” she asks after a while and he shrugs helplessly.

“This place holds all the good memories” he explains without facing her “Just wanted to feel fine even if for a few minutes.” 

_Fine_ , that’s what he had said. Not great or good, not awesome. _Fine._

He just wanted normalcy. 

He wanted the warm feeling of turning around and finding her here sitting on those benches smiling at him and teasing him for sucking at this game. 

He wanted simplicity-to be a boy who was in love with his best friend but was too chickenshit to tell her so, to be that same guy who took her home after and stopped on the way to buy her two milkshakes and some pop corn that she’d eat before they set foot in his house, to be an idiot who stares at her hand taking his a bit too much or her hair falling over her cheeks always being stuck there until he gets to remove it.

He wishes for it all that day but can’t have it and they both know it. 

She goes there now because she needs something to hold onto and her brain tells her this is the place. It’s thankfully deserted once again and she takes the time to stare at the envelope before she finally makes her fingers open it up and take the paper out.

_“Dear Clarke,_

_If you’re reading this, then it means I’m no longer here.”_


	2. The state of being irreversibly fucked up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know I said that I'll post this in two big parts but then I decided against it because it's actually a bit easier for me to edit if I split them into three more instead of just a second big one. I hope you all don't mind!
> 
> Every kudo and comment is much appreciated!
> 
> You can also find me @jasperjoordan on tumblr!

Clarke just can’t keep reading anymore.

She folds the paper back up, right as it was, not having the strength to even skim through it, and then angrily, without any grace whatsoever, puts it in the envelope which she shoves in her purse.

For a while she just stays there, stares at the basketball hoop and when she closes her eyes she can imagine it all-the guys yelling, jumping each other, trying to fool around, their laughs, their bickering **_and Bellamy._**

His soft smile, his strong arms, his laugh and his chest moving up and down as he tries to catch his breath.

When it’s been a while and she starts feeling cold, she takes off and walks around town mindlessly, going into bookshops and purchasing things she doesn’t really need or spending an unhealthy amount of time just sitting in a coffee shop, listening to music and going through her Bio class notes though she can’t focus on anything but the letter in her purse.

Finally, she can’t stand it.

She takes it out, opens it and this time reads the entire thing.

By the time she’s done, she’s crying, so she hides in the bathroom for what seems like another half an hour.

After, she washes her face and is heads to Kane’s diner, worried that she might miss him but she doesn’t.

When she gets there, she looks through the glass windows and sees him talking to Murphy as he tries to put his red plaid jacket on and walks, no actually, limps his way outside.

The moment his head moves up and he meets her gaze, he smiles until he realizes something’s wrong and his face falls.

“Clarke, what are you doing here?” he asks surprised before he’s even fully out the door.

Murphy slaps him on the shoulder before he takes off and for a second there all she can do is stand and stare at his eyes, trying to figure out how she’s missed the eternal sadness there.

But did she really?

Or was she simply used to it because that’s all his life has ever been- _a strain of fucked up moments none of which happy._

“You’re freaking me out, princess. Are you okay? Is it mom? Or O?” of course his mind goes elsewhere.

How dare he ever think of himself, it was simply unnatural.

“It’s you.” she states and he looks even more perplexed at her words. “I know, Bellamy.”

“You know what, princess?”

She takes out the envelope from her purse and the moment his eyes land on it, he takes a step back and looks away.

“Where did you get that?”

“Where do you think?” he huffs and tries to walk around her, heading straight ahead, running like he always did when she pushed him to talk about his own problems or taking care of himself.

“Octavia was looking for _the Iliad_. I seemed to be the only one who could find it.”

“It’s nothing. I wrote it…a long time ago, it doesn’t matter now.”

She stands in his way.

“Stop.” she’s surprised that he listens to her. Maybe it has something to do with her hand on his bicep or the tears in his eyes “We have to talk.”

“I don’t have anything to say” he tries to walk away again but she’s faster and blocks his way once more.

“That’s too bad because I do.” he shoves his hands in his pockets and she knows he wants to punch something, he’s that mad and not even at her, at himself that he let her find it.

His greatest secret was his sadness and the thought of it broke her heart.

“My car’s just around the corner.”

She knows he doesn’t want to follow her but when she tugs his hand down the road, he follows her and for once she’s hopeful because if he does maybe he doesn’t want to carry it all on his own.

Once inside she doesn’t turn the engine on right away, instead they just let the silence surround them.

“Bellamy-” she starts but he cuts her off right away.

“I can’t do this here…locked in a car, I can’t…if you’re going to ask me about this then we need to get somewhere I can breathe.”

He’s still refusing to face her, opting to stare straight ahead instead and she can see how physically hard it is for him to keep himself together.

He also seems quite tired which makes her regret her decision to do this after work.

When she was at their house after Aurora came back from the hospital to check in on her, he’d always come home barely dragging himself in.

He couldn’t even take his clothes of, had no strength for it at all. He simply passed out on the couch with his jacket and boots and exhaled in a way that suggested he’s been trying to keep himself together all day and only now could afford to finally breathe.

She’d come by and take off his boots which were old and torn and he’d mumble through closed eyes.

“I’ll be up in ten minutes to make dinner.”

“I’ve got it.” she says but of course he shakes his head and indeed, ten minutes later he was up, limping to the kitchen where she was already chopping some vegetables for salad and was ready to fight him on his stubbornness which would turn into a back-and-forth exchange while preparing soup or mac and cheese or whatever else he could think of with the stuff they had at home which weren’t too many.

“Where do you wanna go? she asks, reaching for his hand but he pulls away before she can comfort him.

Glancing at his face again he seems suddenly angry, probably for not being able to hide this better from her, for allowing her to find it, for not being more careful.

It was stupid of him, she thinks, she’s always felt ever since the accident that there was something.

Something more than physical pain, maybe something even worse than it. And now that she’s found out how he really feels, it all seems so logical.

“The barns.” his answer brings her back to reality and she nods, turning the engine on but not before she spares another glance at him once more only to find him facing away from her, his cheek pressed to the window now, his eyes closed.

She takes the road to her home and he might seem like he was pretending to be asleep just to avoid talking to her, but she knew better.

By now she could tell by the sound of his breathing if he was awake or not-that rattle in his lungs that came to be after the accident and never disappeared was her tell and judging by how hard he was struggling to pull air in, she knew he was just hiding from her.

They make it in less than fifteen minutes mostly because she was driving faster than usually because she was anxious.

They silently make their way to the barns and Clarke tries really hard not to stare too much at the way he’s dragging his leg with so much effort because it makes her mad.

She opens and closes the big doors while he walks ahead to the stables and Stubborn who’s munching on some hay stirs at his presence and moves his muzzle to him.

“Hey, old friend.” Bellamy greets him quietly.

To this day Stubborn only ever responded in a friendly manner to him.

Bellamy rode him first when they bought him, he was the only one who could tame him, the only one Stubborn trusted.

“He’s not that friendly around me.” she tries to ease them into the serious conversation they are about to have but Bellamy presses his forehead to Stubborn’s muzzle and strokes his neck up and down.

He looks almost peaceful like that-in his old plaid jacket, the washed out jeans, the barely together boots, his curly hair a tired mess sticking in every direction.

“Can I ask you now?”

“You’re going to whether I want it or not.” he spills back and she senses the bitterness in his voice which makes her tense but still, she keeps on.

“When did you write this?” she asks taking the envelope out of her pocket and waving it senselessly in the air.

He finally pulls away from the horse and reaches for some hay which he throws over for Stubborn to keep busy with while he leans on the wooden door separating them.

“A few weeks after I came home from the hospital.” she swallows hard but for once he’s meeting her eyes and she knows that as painful as this is for both of them she has to go on. Diyoza was right-she should talk about it with him.

“Did you start thinking about it then?” he shakes his head and reaches to pat Stubborn again who is nibbling at his shirt demanding his attention as much as Clarke was. “After the accident?”

“I don’t know. “ he answers honestly “Yes…I think.”

“You think?”

“What do you want me to say, Clarke?” he raises his voice suddenly angry again. “That I’m fucked up? That I wanted to die?”

“I just want the truth.” she takes another step forward and is glad when he doesn’t pull away though he seems like he’s debating it. 

He laughs at her words.

“The truth. Okay, here’s the truth for you, princess.” there’s those walls he builds again, trying to shield himself from the pain as he moves towards her now, face devoid of emotion. 

“After the first surgery I couldn’t breathe from the pain. Then there was another for the internal bleeding. And yet another one for my brain.” he shakes his head at himself “The fourth was about the leg. Four surgeries in the span of barely two weeks.”

“I remember that Bellamy.”

“The nurse caught me staring at the bleach they used for cleaning in the corner of the room after the first.” she winces at that “No, you don’t get to do that now. You asked for this.” he reaches and squeezes her hand _“You asked for it.”_

“Keep on.” she tries to squeeze his hand back but he pulls it away like he’s burned, obviously refusing her comfort.

“She tried to talk to me but I brushed it off.” of course he did “Said I was just too high on the painkillers.”

“Have you done anything to harm yourself?”

“There was this time…the day after I came home from the hospital.” he trails off, probably recalling it “I tried to stand up, go to the bathroom. Couldn’t even do that without my mom there, can you believe it?” there’s that bitter laugh again “It was so embarrassing, have my mom hold my hand to the damn bathroom.”

“Bellamy-” she shakes her head trying to tell him there was nothing to be sorry about but he obviously can’t stand to look at her so he turns his back to her and her arm shoots to touch his shoulder but he roughly shakes her off.

“I wanted to do it on my own for once, so I managed to somehow get up but I fell before I even took a step. I fell hard, really hard, hit my head pretty bad and I felt myself bleeding. When I touched it, there was red on my fingers.”

She puts her hand on her mouth and squeezes her eyes. 

_God, no._

She tries to remember if she came to visit him that day but all she can recall is that she had some papers due at the time and couldn’t stop by their house for a few days after he was brought home and when she did, he was asleep so she didn’t get to talk to him at all. 

If she had known…if only she had known.

“I thought I should call my mom but then…I didn’t. I told myself this was it-it could solve all the problems. Mom was in the other room, changing O into her PJs for the night, putting her to bed. I could bleed out here and then when I’m gone she’d come in and find me there-on the floor, trying to get to the damn bathroom.”

She can’t stand the sound of his voice so she grabs his arm and forces him to turn around only to see his cheeks stained with tears. 

When he faces her his voice finally shakes.

“So pathetic.”

“No-”

“I lost consciousness. It was easy actually, not like when I was thrown off the bull. Back then it was all painful-blinding strong pain, your whole body on fire, I could feel the bull stomping on me, the bones breaking, people shouting but this was so peaceful. I felt…light, almost like I was drugged. Back then I still was, Nyko was shooting me with all kinds of painkillers so maybe that’s why it was like this.”

She can’t stand that, the pain in his voice, his body shaking, so she throws herself in his embrace and holds him close while he keeps talking.

“What happened?” she whispers pressing her cheek to his chest and moving her hands up and down his back.

“I lost consciousness but mom found me. She thought she’d check on me after she put O to bed and she caught it right on time. Wrapped a bandage around my head and called Nyko right away. She couldn’t move me, I was too heavy for her but I woke up to Nyko shaking my shoulders and forcing me to stay awake while he stitched me up yet again.”

“They didn’t question it?”

“He did and I said I fell and lost consciousness right away, couldn’t remember anything. It was…close to the truth.”

“Oh, Bell.” she buries her nose in his plaid and breathes him in. 

He still smells like he always did-of chopped woods and grass, of horses, even if he didn’t ride or train anymore, she’d figure it was a part of him now, no matter the circumstances. 

But she couldn’t imagine a scenario in which this body was cold, lifeless. 

With eyes closed now she could picture the terror Aurora must’ve felt-finding her son on the floor, bleeding out, almost dead after just surviving the hardest experience in his life. 

They stay like this just holding each other in their arms, her ear pressed to his heart that skipped beats and to the lungs which were just as fucked up while he rested his chin on top of her head. 

She kept running her hands up and down his neck and felt her own tears drench his shirt but his body was rigid, cold, like it was trying to hold up so as not to fall. 

He was in pain once again. 

“Do you still feel like that?” she asks though she knows the answer to this, or can at least assume it, but needs to hear it from him.

His answer makes her suck her breath in and wince.

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like that, princess.”

She hugs him so hard at that she is sure she might crack a rib but she doesn’t care. 

She needs him here, with her, can’t even let herself think that there could be a world in which Bellamy is not there. 

Can’t imagine her own life without him by her side. 

It’s in that moment that she realizes that no matter what is in store for them, if they ever cross that line that they were both reluctant to now, or if they didn’t, she’d love him with her whole heart for the rest of her life. 

She pulls away and when she looks at his face, she sees blood coming down his nose. 

Her thumb quickly wipes it away as her eyebrows furrow and for a short moment she forgets what they were talking about.

“This has been happening quite a lot lately.” she comments, remembering seeing the same red streak on the night she found him plowing the garden and then once again when they came from the hospital after leaving Aurora there.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something.” he pulls away when he feels yet another fight brewing.

“I’m not going to any more doctors about it.” he cuts her off and once more turns his back to her, walking away.

“Bellamy-”

“I can’t, Clarke.” his vulnerability surprises her. 

She expected him to raise his voice to fight her but all he does is turn back and throw his hands in the air in endless frustration.

“I can’t. I’m too tired for that. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of them prodding me with needles, giving me painkillers, doing x-rays or listening to my lungs. Telling me how fucked up I am, I know that, I do, trust me.”

“You’re not fucked up.” she insists with determination but he shakes his head in disagreement “No, you’re not!” taking the few step to him she cups his cheeks and makes him look at her.

“You’re not.” his breath fans her face and he closes his eyes as she swipes her thumbs on the bags under his eyes.

He pulls her close once more and they stay hugging each other like this for a while. 

She doesn’t know how long it is before he can’t keep standing anymore so he pulls away and she can see he’s barely keeping it together so she pulls his hand over hers and helps him walk outside. 

“Do you want to come home for dinner?” he asks knowing that she’s alone with Jake being out of town yet again but she shakes her head.

“I got an exam tomorrow morning. Need to stay home and cram up one last time.”

The guilt on his face is evident and she almost hates herself for being honest but she grips his hand in order to bring him back to her.

“How about you stay here tonight instead?”

“I can’t. Mom and O need me.”

“What about what you need?” she wants to ask him but can’t, knowing it would only get a negative reaction out of him and he doesn’t need to get any more emotions right now, considering the state he was in.

“I’ll drive you home then.” she says with a curt nod and together, slowly, they make it to the car. 

Once inside, he relaxes into his seat and tries to hold himself together but in truth she has no idea how he’ll go home and cook dinner or help his mom to bed or take care of his sister when it was him who needed someone to look after him.

“Thank you for being honest with me.” she tells him once on the road and he doesn’t say anything back so she keeps going “We need to get you help. Real help.”

“But I’m okay now.”

“You told me yourself you are not just ten minutes ago.” she argues and he huffs in her direction, back to his stubborn self already.

“I’m not going to sit with someone just so they can tell me how fucked up I am. I already know it. And-” he swallows hard “I won’t actually do it, so you have nothing to worry about. Those letters they were just…precaution.”

“No they were preparation.” she cuts him off “For something you almost did. Something you still might do, Goddammit Bellamy, I almost lost you once.” her voice cracks at that and his head snaps in her direction. 

They are almost at their place so she slows down as she makes the last turn that would lead them to the deserted area of Bellamy’s house.

“I’m not doing that again.” she states firmly and he presses his forehead to the car window once more. 

“I don’t think I can do this,Clarke. Talk to someone about this I…”

“You just did it with me.” she says softly when she parks outside their house. 

The place is dark except for Aurora’s bedroom which meant she was probably sleeping while O was either reading or drawing somewhere on the floor. It was almost evening. 

He’d have to go inside, make dinner, take care of O, give her a bath, help her change, put her to bed then help his mom with her medication, force her to eat something so she would get stronger and then after all of this was over, it would be his turn but he’d be so exhausted, he’d just go to his bed and pass out without even taking his clothes or eating properly. 

It would be a miracle if he didn’t forget to take his own medication.

“You’re my friend.” he admits quietly and meets her eyes once more “I can’t talk to someone I have never met about…any of this.”

“We’ll talk to Nyko. Or Diyoza. I’ll do some research and we’ll figure it out, okay?”

When he doesn’t say anything she reaches and takes his hand in hers.

“Bellamy, please say yes.”

“Can’t I just talk to you?” he sighs tiredly and her eyes fill with tears.

“I’m not a professional. I can listen to you but I don’t know how to help you.”

He grits his teeth and tries to pull away but she holds his hand firmly in his and refuses to let him go.

“It’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be.” he tries building the walls again but he should know she can see right through that “I was just being dramatic back then.”

“No, that’s not it.” she insists “You’re not overreacting. You’re hurting.”

He groans.

“I hurt every day it’s nothing new.” the way he says it breaks her heart because it’s true-he does hurt every day. 

He is in pain every goddamn day and there’s nothing she can do about it.

“You and I both know we’re not talking about physical pain here.” he doesn’t want to acknowledge her words again so he simply stares away at their house obviously deep in thoughts.

“I know you’ve never considered that before. That you grew up neglecting any emotion you feel. Refusing to let it feel or thinking you have no right to but, Bellamy-” she takes his chin and pulls his head to her again “This is bigger than you and if you don’t deal with it, it can swallow you whole.”

He looks down at her fingers on his chin and she tries not to pay attention to the way he swallows hard and tries to keep his emotions in check because he looks too hot like that and she can’t allow herself to think about it right now. 

“Clarke-”

“Let’s just try. I’ll come with you the first time okay?”

“Princess-”

“Please, Bellamy.”

“I was going to say yes.” he finally responds with a smirk and she pulls away pretending to be angry at his boyish behavior but she’s internally relieved. 

“I’m sorry I can’t stay tonight.” 

“No, don’t be. You have more important things to worry about. Plus I’ll just pass out after dinner.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow.” she promises but he shakes his head.

“Your dad’s coming back tomorrow, you should stay home.” he’s right. 

She knows he’s damn right but she hates him for remembering important things like that even if they didn’t affect him personally. Though in this case, she thinks, they kind of did.

“On Saturday then.”

“I’m working a double, there’s no point.” he tilts his head to the side sadly and she rubs her forehead tiredly. “I’m off on Sunday, though so-” she can’t believe it will be another few days before they see each other and if she had to be honest with herself it kind of scares her to leave him on his own after she found that damn letter but there was no other choice. 

“See you Sunday” she reassures with a light smile and he slowly gets off the car but then before he closes the door he turns around and ducks his head down.

“Just so we’re clear” she raises an eyebrow confused at his behavior “I don’t go through your stuff so I’d appreciate it if you stayed away from mine.”

She nods as she feels the blush creep up her cheeks. 

Though she’s glad she found the letters, he has a point-those things were personal and she didn’t have the right to go in and read something he wrote. 

Even if it was meant for her. Not unless he gave it to her himself which he didn’t.

He eases the tension with a smile and closes the door but she doesn’t take off before he’s made it inside the house safely. 

His pronounced limp makes her wince with every step he takes and she prays he doesn’t fall tonight and get hurt like it happened so often.

* * *

Two days later she comes by their house and when she opens the door to their place she doesn’t find anyone in the living room or the kitchen which confuses her.

“Bellamy?” she yells “Octavia?”

“Back here!” she hears his voice respond from the back porch and she heads there only to find Bellamy sitting on a chair staring at the mirror put on the kitchen table he must’ve dragged outside while he struggled to cut off some of his beautiful curls. 

Octavia was behind him on a shorter chair bossing him about what to do while Bellamy huffed angrily.

“What’s happening?” she drops the groceries she was carrying on the bench and comes by to take the scissors from Bellamy’s hand. “You’ll butcher yourself.”

“Bell’s hair’s too long, he decided to cut it.” Octavia states the obvious. 

It was true that after the accident he grew his hair longer in a desperate attempt to hide the long jagged scar on the left side of his head but then after a few more months his hair got even longer. 

So long, Octavia started braiding it or tying it up for him while Aurora complained he looked as if he’s homeless. 

It’s not like Bellamy didn’t want to cut it but he kept postponing it, saying one day soon he’ll let his mom do it, but then there was him falling and needing weeks to get back to his feet, after which he started work again and then Aurora got sick so here they were.

“Not to be an ass but I think your mom would do a better job at this.”

“I can do it myself.” he huffs and the way he says it, cold and angry tells her there’s more to the story.

“Mom’s out with Kane.” Octavia announces chippery which makes Bellamy groan and try to reach for the scissors in Clarke’s hand but she’s faster and moves her arm up “And Bellamy’s being an ass about it.”

“Octavia!” her brother warns her for her choice of words but O just sticks her tongue out and hops off the chair.

“I’m going to play with the chicken!”

“Don’t murder them!” Bellamy yells as she runs down the stairs and towards the hen house.

“Your mom’s out with Kane?” Clarke asks again as she comes behind him and takes on cutting his hair off without asking him twice about it. 

There was no way he could do this on his own-he needed help as much as he hated admitting it.

“He’s been coming by ever since she got back from the hospital.” she raises an eyebrow and he looks at her confused expression with the help of the mirror before them “I know. I was surprised too. But they talk for hours out here and today he suggested he takes her out for a walk.”

“A walk?”

“I know, it’s so fifties. The man is a thousand years old.”

“Says the boy who used to fall asleep reading the Iliad when he was nine.”

“Shut up, princess.” she chuckles and keeps on cutting his hair while he leans closer to her touch, his beck pressed to her stomach. 

It was always like this with them, whenever they were in the same place at the same time, their bodies just inched closer together as if on instinct.

“So why are you so pissed off about it?”

“He’s my boss. Her boss!”

“That’s not the real reason and you know it.” she stops for a second to run her fingers through the freshly cut back of his hair before she takes on the unruly sides. 

“He’s not like O’s dad, Bellamy.”

He shivers at the sound of the name and Clarke hates herself for reminding him of Aurora’s last affair that got her addicted to drugs and pregnant while Bellamy slept on the floor and stole food from the grocery stores so he could eat. 

And that’s not even all of it. 

It was just what Clarke knew from what he’s told her on the rare occasions they’ve talked about it but there was more to their lives back then, she just didn’t ask because she was aware of how much he hated it.

“Clarke-” he warns and she sighs, knowing she probably won’t win that argument so she keeps on cutting, this time closer to his scar. 

She never asked him how short he wanted it but she didn’t have to-that was another thing of theirs-they could understand each other with a simple glance and she knew damn well he was always trying to hide that scar-that’s why he never went out with a baseball hat or his cowboy black one, so she had an idea of what she was doing here. 

“I’m just saying” Clarke shrugs as the scissors keep clicking and she pulls away to check how it looks from a different angle before resuming her work. 

For a brief moment she looked at him for confirmation and he nodded, allowing her to cut some more. 

That way his hair would be short enough not to bother him but the curls would still be there, sticking in every direction and hiding his fucked up scar while giving him a more youthful and boyish look. 

“She’s been through a lot. I think she deserves a friend.”

“I believe he’s more than that.” he groans annoyed as she moves to his left side.

“Would that be so bad?”

“I just don’t want mom to get her hopes up. I don’t want O to get her hopes up. She’s happy about this, optimistic. If he is just fooling around or wants to use her and then leave just when my sister’s gotten attached to him, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Great” Clarke rolls her eyes “Put that perfect male bravado back to use. You’re strong, you can kick ass and talk for us, the women in your life, just because you think you are entitled to.”

“You know I’m nothing like that!” he turns his head to her appalled at her statement.

“Yes. So don’t become it!” he looks away and stares down at his naked feet “All I’m saying is, let it play out. Your mom’s a grown woman, she knows what she’s doing and what’s best for you and Octavia.”

“Fine. But I don’t have to act all happy around him.”

“Oh, I am sure you won’t.” she laughs and moves to his front, dealing with the last few too long curls covering his forehead and bothering his eyesight. 

He closes his eyes and breathes her in-she smells of spring, fresh air, lavender and that lemony scent that always came from her hands probably because she constantly used that cream that smelled like citrus. 

Without really thinking too much about it he reaches out and puts his hands on her back. 

She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t seem surprised at all but it. 

They’ve always been touchy with each other-held each other close, spooned each other in bed, cupped each other’s faces, even kissed each other’s cheeks or foreheads.

But never…anything beyond that and as much as Bellamy wanted it, he knew it can’t happen. 

Not after the accident. Not with the way he was. 

But she moved closer as she kept fixing the top of his head and he tiredly leaned on her stomach when she was done and kept running her fingers through his hair. 

He doesn’t know how long they stay like this but he pulls away when he feels something warm and thick coming down his nose.

“What is it?” she asks confused of his abrupt movement before she looks down at him and sees the blood coming from his nose. 

“Not again!” it never failed to amuse him how fast she switched from soft to angry in the span of seconds.

“It’s just the weather” he wipes it away with his hand and leaves a red streak there but this time just like last one’s yesterday, doesn’t stop.

Instead he keeps bleeding on the floor and Clarke angrily runs inside to grab some toilet paper to shove in his nostril and tilt his head back.

“Let’s go inside, put you on the couch.”

“Do you have to make a big deal out of this, it’s just a nose bleed.”

“It’s a nose bleed that keeps happening every other day. This isn’t just a regular occurrence.”

“It can’t be, considering I got a metal plate in my head and Nyko himself has told me it could happen. Something about the blood pressure and the atmosphere and all those stuff.”

“You need to read some medical books cause you’re talking total BS right now.” she scolds as she takes his hand under hers and helps lead him inside.

“Why would I do that when I got you to clear it all out for me.” he jokes as she pushes him down on the pillows of the ragged couch in their living room.

“Keep your head up.” she says and he closes his eyes as he hears her go around the kitchen opening cabinets left and right.

“We’re out of bandages if that’s what you’re looking for to shove up my nose.”

She closes the cabinet with a thud and groans.

“I’d put one in your mouth too just to shut you up.”

“Oh come on,princess. You love my voice, admit it.” he glances at her from the corner of his eye when he notices her approach him with a wet rag which she uses to clean the rest of the blood from his face away. 

She sits down next to him and places a hand on his forehead. 

“It’s so hoarse and sexy, isn’t it?”

“Shut up.” her hand moves to his neck then, checking his pulse and sighing. “You’re kinda feverish.” she announces and he smirks.

“Must be from all the hotness I constantly emanate.”

“Oh yeah?” she plays along with his joke as her hand falls lower to catch his. “You’re the sun then?”

 _“I’m the sun, you’re the stars.”_ he smiles “Always so cold and serious but still shining bright in the midst of all the darkness.”

Damn him for being so poetic right now. Her hand goes back up to his forehead and he raises an eyebrow.

“Just checking if your fever got worse in the span of two seconds since you’re blabbering.” he chuckles and takes her wrist only to bring her hand close to his mouth and kiss her knuckles.

It was moments like this when she could say they were playing on a dangerous territory.

“Thanks for the haircut, princess.”

She’s about to tell him he’s welcome when Octavia comes bursting through the back door, holding something small and yellow in her hands.

“Bell! BELL, we got little CHICKS!!!! THE CHICKS ARE HERE, BELL!”

He sits up at his sister’s enthusiastic rant and all three of them gush over the cute little chick Octavia was holding in her hands. 

“It’s so small, Bell.”

“It is indeed.”

“We need to protect it.” he smiles, remembers those are the exact same thoughts he had when he held her in his arms. 

“We will. But for now you need to bring it back to his mom so she’d keep him warm and safe.”

“But can I take it out tomorrow again?” O asks excitedly and he reaches to cup her cheek.

“We’ll see.” O pouts but nods when Bell urges her to take the chick away and it’s in those moments that Clarke wishes she had a sibling too. 

Watching the Blakes interact was one of her favorite things.

She’s about to scold him to lay back down when they hear laughter coming from the front porch and their heads snap to the door. 

Clarke can see Aurora and Kane through the glass door and obviously so can Bellamy because he groans and turns away as if disgusted by the sight.

“Bellamy” his mom says once they make it inside, surprised to find him here though it was his day off and he was home when she left with Kane but she just seems so elated, so happy, even her cheeks have their color back “Clarke.”

“Yes, those are our names.” he groans and Clarke nudges him with her elbow.

“Bellamy.” Kane nods in his direction standing behind her but his hand still looped over Aurora’s for support. 

Bellamy’s eyes fall on that and he huffs which earns him another jab in the ribs from Clarke. 

“You cut your hair.” his mom takes a step forward and reaches for him but he pulls back which makes her face fall but he just waves his hand, refusing to be embarrassed like a little kid.

“Actually Clarke did.” 

“Oh, he would’ve chopped his ear if I hadn’t intervened so-” she shrugs and both Aurora and Kane laugh. Aurora pulls Kane’s hand closer and looks between him and Clarke.

“I don’t think you’ve actually met. Clarke’s a very good friend of Bellamy and Octavia and part of our family.” Clarke reaches her hand and shakes Kane’s trying not to cry at Aurora’s fond words. 

She’s never actually met him though she knows he’s come by the hospital when Aurora was still there and one time she picked Bellamy up he was talking to some waiters outside but they have never been formally introduced until now.

“She’s the only one who can tame my son’s stubborn nature.”

“Sounds like it’s a challenge.”

“Every day, sir. He doesn’t like making it easy for me.”

“I’m standing right here.” Bellamy rolls his eyes at their conversation but his mom is smiling so fondly at them that he doesn’t have the heart to be mean right now even if he hates the presence of this man in their house. 

That’s when Aurora’s eyes fall on the paper tucked to his nose and she reaches to cup his cheek.

“Another nosebleed?”

“It’s nothing.” he pulls away from her “It’s just the weather.” she raises an eyebrow at Clarke and she shakes her head but they decide they’ll deal with that later.

“Where’s your sister?”

“Outside playing with the chicken.” he glances between Kane and her again “Did you have a good walk?” there’s bitterness in his voice which doesn’t go unnoticed by Aurora but she says nothing.

“It was great. Marcus took me to this cafe” she beams again “Haven’t been out for fun in ages.”

“Sounds great.” Clarke chimes in just when Octavia runs inside all muddy and dirty her hair in her face and a stick in her hand yelling her brother’s name, calling him to play. 

When she sees the adults standing there she stops abruptly but smiles when her eyes land on Kane.

“Mr. Kane!” she yelps and runs to jump in his arms. 

Kane doesn’t seem the least bit repulsed by her state of clothes and takes her in hugging her briefly.

From what Clarke knew, Kane and Octavia hit it off when Bellamy started bringing her to work with him while Aurora was in the hospital. 

He’d sit down and draw with her or read or show her how to make cookies, all of which made Bellamy, who’s had his sister’s full attention and love all to himself for years, jealous. 

And his mom swooning over him wasn’t helping either.

Neither was the fact that Kane being their boss meant Bellamy had to pace himself and his snarky comments. 

“Didn’t I tell you to call me Marcus?”

“We got chicks!” she yells in response to that and jumps off his embrace.

“Octavia, pace yourself.” Aurora scolds mildly but it’s clear she’s enjoying seeing her daughter like this.

“Oh do you now?” they continue the exchange for a while and Bellamy and Clarke just stand there watching them for a few minutes and exchanging surprised or confused glances. 

That is until Aurora interrupts her daughter’s blabbering.

“Marcus, why don’t you stay for dinner? Bellamy made his special meatloaf earlier and it would be too much for us anyway.”

Bellamy groans at that visibly but Clarke steps on his good leg and he shuts it under her and his mom’s scrutinizing glances.

“I don’t want to intrude.” Kane tries to get out of it seeing that not all parties involved would be happy with him being there but Octavia claps her hands excitedly and yells.

“Yes! Stay, stay, stay!” so Bellamy just turns around and heads to the kitchen to set the table. 

Clarke comes by to help him while Aurora, Kane and O are dragged outside by the youngest Blake who insists they have to see the chicken.

Once everyone are back inside and ready to eat Clarke leans to Bellamy’s ear and warns him “Please behave. For your mother’s sake.” he clenches his jaw but says nothing.

Aurora always sits in the center of the table with Bellamy on her right and O to her left. Clarke is next to Bell as usually and Kane is opposite of her and next to a chatty excited Octavia.

Clarke thinks that with Bellamy being unhappy about it it, this would be the most awkward dinner ever but he actually keeps quiet the entire time while Octavia, Aurora and Kane fill the air with happy chatter around them. 

Kane tries to include Bellamy in the conversation a couple of times but he gives him one word responses to which his mother frowns and Clarke has to kick his leg to remind him to behave all of which of course he doesn’t take under consideration. 

“So Clarke, I hear you’re pre-med.” Kane turns to her when he fails to start a conversation with Bellamy so she smiles at him trying to articulate that she doesn’t mind him being there.

“I am.”

“She’s been of great help to us actually.” Aurora adds and looks at Bellamy who’s picking at his sweet potatoes “She always gives Bellamy a hand when he needs it or is in pain.”

“That’s really nice of you.” Clarke feels Bellamy tense beside her and though she knows Aurora had only good intentions whens he said this, it also made Bellamy look like he’s helpless which he hates. 

“It’s not that big of a deal” she tries to downplay it and glances carefully at him but he’s stubbornly staring at his plate.

“Bell used to be a great bull rider!” O decides to say then while she is playing with the stuffed toy in her hands and eating at the same time “He won all those rodeos.”

“Octavia, honey-” Aurora tries to intervene aware of what this is doing to Bellamy right now.

“And he could train horses. We had horses before not just chicken! And he has promised to get me a horse when I grow a bit more, right Bell?”

Bellamy who’s face had gotten significantly pale, plays it completely cool though Clarke knows that deep inside he’s suffering but he can’t blame Octavia. She was just a kid and it’s not like she was saying anything that wasn’t true.

“That’s true.” Octavia nods and turns back to Kane who seems uncomfortable too though Clarke’s sure he’s heard Bellamy’s story. It was a small town and he used to be a famous competitor. 

“But we still don’t have the money so right now Clarke lets me ride her horse Moreen.”

“Do you compete, Clarke?” Kane swiftly changes the subject and Clarke’s grateful for his sensitivity.

“I do, mostly in the summer when I’m not too busy with school.”

“She’s great! We went to her last rodeo and she won first place!” Octavia keeps blabbering after that and Clarke lets her hand move to Bellamy’s leg and squeeze it in support. 

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t acknowledge it n any way either. Just keeps staring at his plate but she knows he feel awful and he’s trying very hard not to burst.

Though that’s kind of inevitable.

“You have a lovely garden outside. Aurora told me you work on it almost every day, Bellamy.” 

Bellamy doesn’t even acknowledge him with a real answer but instead nods and keeps munching on his potatoes and taking sips from his glass.

“Marcus actually suggested he’d bring me some flowers to put there too.” Aurora once again tries to ease the tension of the conversation but she fails dramatically when Bellamy speaks up.

“What good are flowers?” the table goes silent and even Octavia perks up a bit, furrowing her eyebrows at her brother’s rude voice. “We can’t eat them. I put things out there we can grow and pick later.”

“Bell-” Clarke whispers but he is looking straight ahead at his mother, having a mental match with her, trying to convey everything that’s on his mind with one simple look.

“Well I like them, so I want to have them.” Aurora’s voice is cold and stern. 

Clarke has always known her for being loving but fair and firm with her children. It’s one of the many qualities she’s had to acquire while raising two kids. Sometimes, like right now, even Clarke got scared shitless when she was being her mom self.

”And he’s been nice enough to offer.”

Bellamy brushes his mouth with the napkin and stands up abruptly.

“If you’d excuse me, I’m kind of tired and I have an early shift tomorrow.” his voice is quiet and Clarke knows he’s on the bring of breaking down but he’s trying to hold it together.

“I’ll see you at work, Mr. Kane.” he heads to his room limping but still fast and closes the door before Clarke can pull her chair away and head there.

Aurora’s hand on her wrist stops her though.

“I think he needs some time to himself.” Clarke nods even if all she wants to do is run there and hug him, tell him it’s okay, that he has a right to feel this way and scold him mildly for being kind of a dick but reminding him his mom loves him. 

Aurora’s scrutinizing look and Kane’s confused expression stop her though. She doesn’t want to completely ruin the evening, so she stays.

It’s not for another hour before Kane leaves, Clarke cleans up the dishes, forces Aurora and O to bed, promising she’s got this and they don’t need to help and only after everything’s done, she heads to Bellamy’s room. 

She’s spending the night like she usually did when she stayed over for dinner at the Blakes. 

It’s nothing new, has been happening since she was a kid and it’s always her sharing a bed with Bellamy and Aurora sleeping with O in their bedroom. 

She finds him curled up on his bad side with his back to her but judging by the rise and fall of his chest, he was awake.

She heads to the bathroom first, fixes her hair and brushes her teeth, then goes back to his room and puts on her PJs which are an old blue shirt that was his once upon a time but she started using to sleep here years ago and a pair of red flowery shorts. 

When she slips under the covers his eyes are still closed but her heart jumps when she notices the red dots on the pillow and her thumb goes to touch the space between his nose and mouth.

“Still bleeding?” she asks and he finally opens his eyes.

She wishes he hadn’t.

There was so much hurt in them, so much pain. 

He wasn’t crying, but the tears were there and when she sees him like this, she puts her hand on his neck and pulls his hand closer so she can kiss his forehead and then gently, softly, she moves to his chin.

He exhales, but allows her touch comfort him. 

Her hands go anywhere they can think of-his hair, scratching at his scalp a bit knowing it calms him down. 

He even lets her shove her fingers on his bad side where the metal plate was. 

He only ever allowed her to do that, he’d shiver when the doctors were checking up on it and always move away but not with her-he wasn’t ashamed of his scars around her. 

She hasn’t even seen them all. 

She knew of those on his leg, at least the ones below the knee, when she had tried to help him and then there were those on his chest and both his sides where the surgical incisions were made to stop the internal bleeding whilst the more jagged and unnatural ones were from the wounds the bull gave him. 

There was one long vertical scar on his lower back where they had to open him to fix the nerves so he could walk and one on his arm that was long starting from his arm all the way down to his elbow-all jagged and uneven. 

He had let Clarke draw on his casts back at the hospital but after when they took them off, O would sometimes trace them with a marker and he’d let her “tattoo” him to hide away his ugliness.

But there were millions of other smaller ones she hadn’t seen-some from old wounds, some from the accident. 

There was one on his side that she never quite caught sight of because his arm blocked it and another one on his shoulder blade that was half hidden by a tattoo he got before it all happened which was now ugly sliced in two from the incision.

His hand goes to her waist and he pulls her closer to his face so that their noses are touching. 

His eyes never leave hers and for a while they just stay there, staring at each other before he finally moves to kiss her forehead, then her eyelids, his breath fans her face when he moves to her cheeks and then he pulls away again.

They are both breathing heavily and Clarke’s eyes fall on his lips.

When she looks up again for just a second she finds him staring at hers as well and her breath hitches.

She inches even closer, their bottom lips brush.

And then he pulls away.

“We can’t.” he mumbles but he doesn’t make any moves to separate himself from her. If anything his grip on her back tightens.

“Why not?” she asks and shakes his head.

“What do you see in my eyes, Clarke?” 

_Pain_ , is her immediate response but she doesn’t say it, can’t say it, yet it’s written all over her face and he can see it because he smiles sadly. 

“And that’s your answer, princess.”

They still rest their foreheads against each other and he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear while she runs her hand up and down his back. 

“What if I disagree?” she says after a while when his thumb moves to map the circles under his eyes.

He smiles knowingly, expecting her to say this all along.

“There are great things head of you, Griffin.” the fact that he uses her last name means he’s serious about his words and she hates it. “You’ll conquer the world.” now his hand is cupping her cheek too “But I can not be by your side when you do it.”

She furrows her eyebrows and opens her mouth to argue but he places his index finger on her lips and shakes his head. 

She’s so taken aback by the gesture that she sucks in her breath and he softly takes her hand and kisses her knuckles like he did a few days ago.

“I’m too tired to fight now, princess.”

“Okay.” she agrees but still doesn’t make any move to get away from him and neither does he. 

Their noses are still touching as well as their foreheads and he brings their hands between them, fingers intertwined while he pulls the blanket up to cover her back and keep her warm.

“You should turn over to your good side so you don’t hurt.” 

“If I do I might hit you in my sleep.” and she knows he means the nightmares so she stares at his eyes again and shakes her head.

“I’ll spoon you, keep you from flailing too much making a mess of this perfect bed.” she tries to slide in a joke but he really must be tired because he agrees without much fuss and turns his back to her. 

She lets her hand touch his stiff arm and he jumps under it.

“Don’t.” he begs gently and she kisses his neck in apology before she shoves her arm under his and throws her leg over his while nuzzling her nose in his collarbone.

“Sorry. I thought I could check it out, help some.”

“Not tonight.” he begs and she agrees with a light nod so that he feels her head move next to his. 

She knew best when he was up to letting her give him a hand and when he wouldn’t. If he was asking her like this it meant he hurt too much and her touch would only make things harder. 

“So…Kane, huh?” Clarke dares say when they’re comfortable and it’s clear they both won’t be falling asleep right away. 

He simply grunts and buries his face further in the pillow. 

“Should I call him your step dad or-”

“Stop teasing, princess. It’s not funny.” he jiggles in her arms to prove his point and she smiles but holds him close.

“He’s not that bad. And Octavia seems to love him.”

“She’s the only reason I didn’t kick him out of the house.” he mumbles voice tainted with exhaustion.

“That and the fact that he is your boss.”

“I need a new job.” the seriousness with which he says it makes her pull away to look at his face better. “Maybe I should call Roan about that training thing again.”

“No.” the firmness of her voice makes him open his eyelids and throw her a dirty look. “Bellamy, this job is good for you. It’s not too busy and he’s mindful of your state.”

“The state of being irreversibly fucked up, you mean.”

“Cut it off with the angry teenager attitude. This is important.” she squeezes his arm and for a moment forgets that it hurts him so he bites his lip and throws his head back before she lets go of it immediately and apologizes “Nobody else around here will provide the work conditions that you need.”

He doesn’t say anything to that because he’s aware that she’s right but doesn’t want to admit it.

“Well at least we know where I’ll retire.”

“Bellamy” she scold mildly and he squeezes her hand.

“I’m kidding, princess. Kind of…” he swallows hard and squeezes his eyes in embarrassment “I was an ass back then, wasn’t I?”

“To some extent. But I get where you come from.” she promises and feels his body relax under her after she says it “Still think you should apologize to your mom.”

He huffs again but she knows he’ll listen. He always did when it came to his family, though she had no idea why but it made her happy that she could help them even with something small like this.

Soon after they fall asleep but at about three she wakes up. She’s not sure why, it wasn’t him who did, as a matter of fact he was surprisingly quiet and still under her but she felt…hot.

And as she realizes why she squeezes her eyes shut.

It’s him. He’s feverish again. The moonlight is shining on his face and there’s blood again covering his cheek and staining the pillow. It has already stopped but the fact that it happened again makes her worry. 

Her hand falls to his forehead and he stirs under her.

“Clarke-”

“Shh.” she quiets him with a kiss and turns the bedside lamp on. 

His eyes open but just briefly before he shuts them again and she figures that if he doesn’t even have the strength to fight her right now, he must be feeling really weak. 

She doesn’t really want to move out of their warm covers but she has to run to the bathroom to look for some pills. 

It scares her that he hasn’t moved at all when she comes back and has actually fallen again so she has to pat his cheek to wake him up and raise his head to help him take the pills.

“What’s that?”

“Some tylenol. You’re burning.”

He waves his hand when she drops his head back to the pillow and smiles, dismissing this entirely as if it mattered not. 

“Come back here.” he asks of her and she quickly places herself next to him, this time resting her cheek on his chest and listening to his heart, not liking what she was hearing one bit. 

His numb arm can’t wrap itself around her so she has to take it herself and put it on her waist.

“We need to take care of that.” she whispers but all he does is bury his nose in her hair and breathe her in.

“No.” he complains like a child.

“I don’t think you should go to work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, right.” he looks at her “That’s not happening.”

“Then the least we should do is take you to Nyko when your shift’s over.” she offers knowing she won’t change his mind about going to work but trying to win another fight instead.

“I don’t want to.” he mumbles like a kid who doesn’t want to fall asleep while his eyes are already closing.

“We won’t tell your mom till we know what it is.” she suggests to make him more benevolent and he lets a sight out suggesting he’s giving up as he keeps stroking her hair “And we need to talk to him about the other thing either way so it’s a win win.”

“Go to sleep, princess. It’s too early for that.” he mumbles but she knows she’s convinced him. 

And even if he pulls up a fight tomorrow, she can remind him he said yes last night which he technically didn’t but she can still use the worst of the situation to her advantage. 

He falls a few minutes later but she doesn’t. She’s too worried. Hates the way his heart beats too fast or how his whole body convulses with pain every now and then. 

She falls asleep at five am a little before he gets up to get to work and wakes up at around noon just when he’s done with his shift.

* * *

She doesn’t give him a chance to get away with going to Nyko so she parks outside the diner like she did the day she found the letter and waits for him to come outside. 

Needless to say he’s not particularly happy to see her, hoping she would’ve forgotten about it.

“Don’t you have a paper or something to work on?” he says when he settles down next to her and closes the door with a thud.

“If you’d care to ask you’d know I passed my last one with flying colors the other day.”

That shuts him up, something in his face softens and at first she doesn’t notice what’s the matter until they are on their way to the hospital and they stop at a red light which gives her the chance to inspect his face.

“I’m sorry.” he says voice low and somehow he feel even more guilty when she raises her eyebrow confused “I don’t ever ask about you these days.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is and you know it. You’ve been more of a friend to me than I have ever been to you.”

“Bellamy, don’t go there, you’ve had a really rough time lately.”

“That doesn’t excuse my behavior.” he raises his voice as if needing to punish himself “I’ll try to do better.”

“You do well enough.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do we have to fight on the way to the doctor, Bellamy?” she sighs tiredly and he crosses his arms over his chest.

“Yes. Because this is important. You came all the way out here to make sure I get help and I do nothing to ask how things are for you.”

“Need I remind you that before we had our stupid fight you called me every evening to check how I was doing and brought me burgers from the diner twice because you know I don’t eat enough when I’m studying.”

“It’s not nearly enough considering what you do for me.”

“Okay, now’s really not the time-” she parks outside the hospital and turns the engine off but he grabs her wrist before she can open the door.

“I’m taking you out for dinner tonight.”

“What?”

“First we eat, then we go to the movies. You have been nagging me to see the new Star Wars for weeks now. It’s time.”

“Bellamy, there’s no need to, you’re-”

“Fine. And you are my friend so we’re going out and having a nice evening. You deserve it after working so hard at school.”

“But what about Octavia?”

“Mom’s home and she needs to go to bed early anyway, she has school tomorrow.”

“Let’s just first see what Nyko says and then we’ll talk”

“No. I’m taking you out. Tonight.”

“Fine, fine. Let’s just go.” she urges him and she hates to say it but she has no idea how he’d make it up all night with his leg dragging like this. 

She doesn’t comment on it, knowing how much he hates it so instead she just helps him walk to the waiting room and goes to talk to the nurses at the reception about seeing Nyko. 

While they’re waiting, he falls asleep leaning on her shoulder and when she looks down at him fondly, she finds blood ticking down his nose again. 

Nyko comes just a minute later when she’s trying to wipe the blood away with a tissue from her purse and worriedly leans down touching his neck to check his pulse. 

She explains the situation and how often this has been happening lately but what scares her is the fact that Nyko doesn’t say anything bad, just picks up Bellamy’s chin and stares at his pupils.

“I’ll take him in right now.” he calls for a nurse and they shake him awake. 

He seems a bit delusional at first but by the time he’s dragged into a room he throws Clarke an apologetic look as the door closes and separates them.

She waits outside for what seems like over an hour and wonders if she maybe made a mistake of not telling Aurora but Bellamy specifically insisted they don’t do that and on their way here he called home to say he’ll be out with her and probably sleep at her place which meant for tonight, they had a cover.

When Nyko finally emerges from the room, his look tells her everything she needs to know.

“I’m sorry.” he says shaking his head “I need to keep him overnight.”

Clarke sits back down with a thud and holds her head with her hands while he joins her on the chair next to her and explains that he needs to run some tests. 

Bellamy’s blood pressure was too high, he honestly didn’t know how he made it so far without passing out and he’s not sure yet what the problem with his head is but his left pupil was dilated so he needed to do some scans.

“It could be nothing serious or it could be something but we need to know.” he finishes and Clarke nods while staring ahead.

“We were supposed to go out tonight. Have dinner.”

“I’m sorry.” Nyko says and she can sense the regret in his voice. 

Was this how everyone talked to Bellamy all the time? Is this why he hated it? The pity in their voices? The helplessness to change things?

Well she was going to show a middle finger to the universe tonight. The world does not get to take this away from them.

“Don’t be. We’re still having it.”

“Clarke, I told you he needs to stay tonight.” Nyko warns but she simply stands up and looks at him with determination.

“That’s alright. He doesn’t have to go anywhere.” she grabs her jacket and her keys “You’ll need at least an hour to do all the tests right?”

“Maybe even more.”

“Tell him I’ll be here when they bring him back to his room.” Nyko nods and watches her leave.

She comes back when they’re taking some blood samples and she bursts through the door like she owns the place.

“Princess.” he says and got he looks so sad and broken but she doesn’t care. 

She drops the bags she’s carrying on the bedside drawer and sits on the chair which she pulls closer so she can reach and take his hand to squeeze. 

“What’s all this?”

“Dinner.” she announces with a smile and he raises an eyebrow. 

The nurse gives them a look but says nothing as she draws the last vial and puts on a band aid on the place the needle pinched his skin. 

“Is that all?” Clarke asks her while she’s filling something in his chart.

“For now, yeah. Dr. Nyko will be back soon to check on him again but it won’t be for a while. He’s still in surgery.”

“Thank you.” Bellamy always made sure the nurses and doctors knew he appreciated them taking care of him so Clarke nods gratefully as well before they are left alone again.

“How bad was it?” she asks as she stands up again to help him sit, moving pillows behind him and opening the brown bags just to hand him a white box and some sticks.

“Chinese? I like your choice, princess.”

“I know. It’s my favorite and tonight was all about me before you decided to be a dramatic ass.” he laughs at that but opens up the food while she brings the portable tray over the bed and sits opposite of him. 

It almost feels normal except for the pain in his eyes and the worry in hers.

“So, how bad?” she asks again when they start eating.

“Not too bad. Just some x-rays, scans and the blood samples.” he says with a shrug “Should be all good to go tomorrow.” she nods and looks at him picking at his food thinking over something “Thank you for this, princess.”

“It’s nothing.” 

“No, don’t dismiss it like that.” he shakes his head stubbornly trying to prove a point and bringing up their conversation from earlier once more “You’re taking care of me once more. You take care of me all the time.”

“I’m not. If I was, you wouldn’t be here now.” he reaches to take her wrist.

“You do it.” he insists “And you don’t have to. It’s not your job.”

“Come on, not with this again-”

“I don’t want you wasting your life over this.” he says seriously and tightens his grip “Over me.”

“I’m not.”

“You know exactly how many pillows I need to be comfortable sitting, Clarke. Even my mom doesn’t do that.”

“I’m your friend. I help out. If it was me, would you not be doing the same?” that shut him up for a second and he clenches his jaw “Just think about it. If I had gotten hurt, couldn’t walk, was in pain every day, would you leave me?”

“Of course not. But-”

“There are no buts.” she sighs “Do we have to fight again? Bellamy, we were supposed to have a night out and even that got fucked up so we’re doing the next best thing. Can you not ruin that as well?”

“Fine.” he agrees with a sigh but they keep bickering for a while until they’re done with their food. 

She tries to go back to the chair but he pulls her down to his good side and turns the TV on. 

Surprisingly for both of them, they find some reruns of the classic Star Wars and before long she falls asleep in his arms. 

He looks down at her as he strokes her hair and thinks how peaceful she seems in that moment. 

The warmth of her body pressed to his was enough to help him push the pain in his head and leg to the back of his mind and simply marvel her. 

It was in those moments that he understood why people could stare at a beautiful painting for hours and never get tired of it. 

Sometimes it felt like Clarke was his whole world. No, that was wrong, he thinks as he leans down to kiss the top of her head, she was the sky and he got lost in her every damn time he stared at those blue eyes. It was the best feeling in the world and even if he knew that one day she’ll go out and conquer the world on her own while he stays behind just letting the days pass by, he won’t be sad. 

It’s what she deserved.

This life-him being in pain all the time, her dragging him to the hospitals and worrying over him-no matter what she said, it wasn’t meant for her. 

He hates admitting it but the reason why he disliked Kane being around so much was because it made him absolutely disposable. 

If Clarke had her studies and the chance of going out into the world and having a life of adventure and career choices, then with Kane being there for his mom and sister, it meant he wouldn’t be needed by anyone anymore.

And maybe that was for the better, he thought as he stared up at the ceiling. 

All this time he’s been trying so hard for his sister, for his mother, he pushed through because Clarke was there by his side and wouldn’t let him give up on himself but if they were alright without him there, wouldn’t that be good?

The thought scared him for a moment-being disposable, being nothing to no one but then the feeling passed away when he looked down to her and convinced himself it was the right thing to happen. 

The universe may be awesome at screwing up many things but this wasn’t one of them.

He lets himself fall asleep with that thought and he doesn’t know how much time has passed before he feels Clarke’s hand on his cheek, shaking his face to wake with gentleness only she possessed and when his eyes manage to make a mess of the blur before him, he finds Nyko standing on the other side of the bed with a folder in hands.

“Welcome back.” he greets him but he looks really tired and uptight like he did before giving them bad news “Sorry to wake you but I’ll be gone in a few hours and I wanted to discuss the test results with you before you’re discharged tomorrow.”

“Okay” Bellamy blinks away the last of his sleepiness while Clarke who has removed herself from his side probably before she woke him up, stands up from the chair and takes his good hand in hers.

“What’s the verdict?”

“Seems like your blood pressure meds are not working well in a combination with the anti-inflammatories Diyoza gave you so that’s the good news.”

“It is?”

“Yes, because now we can try a new one and see how you respond to that.”

“Okay?” he shoots Clarke a look saying see, told you there’s nothing to worry about which doesn’t do anything to crease the brow between her eyebrows.

“But-”

“Ah, I knew there was more to it.” Bellamy tries to play it cool mostly for Clarke’s benefit but both her and Nyko can see through him, as usually.

“It seems you’ve developed arrhythmia which is why your heart is beating so irregularly but we can regulate that with medication again.” that was to be expected.

After the accident Nyko told him this won’t be just it-that yeah he fucked up but with time other things will follow and he was turning out to be right. 

“Just so you know you should refrain from any heavy activity or staying out long in the sun.”

“And his head?” Clarke asks next still clenching his hand with hers so hard he feels she’ll leave a bruise so he has to remind her to loosen up with a brush of his thumb over her knuckles.

“So far so good. There aren’t any signs of internal bleeding but there are some of a mild concussion. You fell recently?”

He groans at that and when he doesn’t say anything Clarke turns to face him instead of Nyko.

“You fell? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Okay, it wasn’t important.” he raises his hands in defense “I just tripped over.”

“How?” she interrogates and he drops his head back on the pillow and rolls his eyes. 

“Do you have to make a big deal out of this now?”

“I’m not making-”

“Okay, I think that’s everything from me.” Nyko interrupts them as Bellamy crosses his arms over his chest and Clarke shoots him angry looks. “In case you have any questions, I should go.”

“Actually, we do.” Bellamy swallows hard at that knowing this was bound to be the harder conversation so he refuses to look at her and opts to close his eyes instead, squeezing her hand in support and letting her know he trusts her with this. “He needs help.”

“What kind of help?” Nyko’s voice sounds confused and Bellamy still stubbornly keeps his eyes close and buries his head in the pillow facing away from the doctor.

“We need you to recommend a therapist.” she states her voice unwavering while he feels the tears fall down his cheeks and wet the pillow. 

She must notice it because her fingers wrap tighter around his again. 

“Preferably someone who can take him in as soon as possible.”

The silence in the room is so deafening, Bellamy wishes the floor could open and swallow him whole but since that can’t happen, he just pulls his hand away from Clarke and turns his back to Nyko while they talk options and he chooses to fall asleep and free himself from reality.


	3. But if only you could see yourself in my eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is a shorter update but I still hope you'll like it. There are some heavy stuff that are discussed in the beginning of the chapter whilst the second part is more light and happy so I hope I balanced it out.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who had commented on this fic. I was actually contemplating removing it from ao3 but decided against it so thank you.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @jasperjoordan

A week later Clarke stops in front of Dr. Santiago’s office with a very grumpy and scared Bellamy next to her. 

He’s tried to pull up a fight and had postponed this for days before she had to change their appointment twice and told him she’s not doing it again. 

When he tries to make up an excuse about having to work or taking care of Octavia, she calls Kane and arranges for Bellamy to have the day off and makes sure Aurora’s free to look after his sister before she physically drags him to her car and drives away.

“I hate you.” he mumbles now when she turns the engine off and they both stare at the red-bricked building next to them. 

Nyko had taken up the matter seriously and after suggesting two or three options, Clarke decided Bellamy would feel most comfortable with Dr. Santiago who had experience of dealing with cases with severe PTSD, trauma, physical injuries, ex soldiers and even cowboys who got hurt like Bellamy and couldn’t compete anymore. 

The best of it all was that his office was in the neighboring town of Sanctum so Bellamy wouldn’t feel to embarrassed to go there as not as many people would recognize him. 

The therapist also took pro bono cases and when Clarke met with him earlier that week to give him Bellamy’s medical files and explained the situation he had agreed to take his case under consideration for free medical expertise and she left feeling like this is the right person to help her best friend.

That didn’t mean Bellamy was going to make it any easier for them being here. 

He’s been quiet on the way and when she tried to calm him down and explain that the guy is not as scary as he thinks he might be, Bellamy had simply closed his eyes and rest his head on the window, dozing off. 

He did that a lot lately. 

Ever since they came back from the hospital last time she’s come by their place to find him either quietly cooking in the kitchen or sleeping. 

Sometimes she’d shake him back to consciousness and suggest they do something to which he agreed seemingly enthusiastically but by the time they were out having a few drinks with their friends or going to the movies, he was back to his lethargic self, not talking much or simply nodding whenever someone tried to include him in the conversation. 

Kane kept coming by their house and though he wasn’t happy about it, he seemed less opposed to it as he was that first night which also made her worry.

He was off.

Whatever was going through his mind, was only making things worse and he really needed help.

“Oh I hate you too, Bell.” she says with a mock smile and opens her door “Come on, we’ll be late and I’m not embarrassing myself any more to that receptions girl after I had to postpone this twice.”

He follows her to the building reluctantly. 

The place was used as a community center for mental health which was the first time Clarke has heard of something like this before the girl on the phone, Delilah, had given her the details. 

There were group sessions on ground one, NA and AA meetings on the second floor, therapists offices on the third while the fourth served as a place for kids with troubled pasts or abusive families to come by and have a safe place to study or play while also receiving mental help. 

They head for the third floor and unfortunately for Bellamy, the building has no elevator so he has to fight with the stairs on an obviously bad for his leg day. 

Still, he doesn’t say anything and refuses to take her hand when she offers it, simply out of stubbornness.

Once there, Clarke heads to the desk where the girl she spoke on the phone with, Delilah, shows them to Dr. Gabriel Santiago’s office and tells them he’d be out to take them in in a few minutes. 

“Please, try not to be so grumpy.” Clarke asks of him but he simply rolls his eyes and holds his knee with his shaky hand refusing to give her a proper answer “You promised you’ll try, Bell. For me.” she reminds him but again he gets away with granting her a response as the door opens and a young blond woman exists only to be followed by a guy with black hair and beard wearing a cardigan that made him look even taller, send her off.

“See you next week, Josephine.” the girl winks at him which makes Clarke raise her eyebrows in confusion before the man turns to them and they both stand up “Ah Miss Griffin, you finally made it!”

“Clarke, please” Bellamy grunts behind her at that.

“And you must be Bellamy.” Gabriel reaches his hand and Bellamy reluctantly takes it “Please come inside.”

They follow him and Clarke’s surprised when she doesn’t see a couch or comfortable arm chairs but instead two regular chairs that they settle on and Gabriel’s desk opposite of them with a squeaky office chair that he sits on opposite of them. 

It looks more like her college interview setting than a therapist office but she finds that maybe this is for the better. 

Gabriel must notice her observations because he comments on it when he removes a folder from a stack before him and opens it up in his hands.

“I prefer to have a more informal, simple setting. It makes people feel less like they are at a therapists office and more like they’re just going to be scolded by the principal for tee-peeing the gym, don’t you think.” Clarke smiles at his joke but Bellamy’s still tense next to her. 

She wants to reach out and take his hand just to calm his nerves down but his knee seems to still be reeling from the exhaustion so his fingers are wrapped around his leg and he’s staring straight ahead, somewhere behind Gabriel with his jaw clenched and his expression more angry than anything. 

Clarke finds herself relieved that he’s showing any emotion at all, considering he has been impassive for the entirety of last week.

“So, Mister Blake. Is it okay to call you Bellamy?” Gabriel turns to him while his eyes scan the folder before him. 

He nods at that and Gabriel grants him a warm smile. 

“Want to tell me why you decided to come here?” Bellamy still seems really reluctant to talk and when he doesn’t speak up Clarke decides to help out. 

This was the reason why she promised to come with him the first few times until he felt more comfortable talking with the doctor. 

She knew if she left this in his hands, he’d stay in silence for the next hour and bolt off the door when the time is through.

“It was actually my idea.” Clarke says and Gabriel, though seemingly not happy that Bellamy’s not talking, understands what’s happening here so he smiles in her direction. “I insisted that he gets help.”

“And why’s that?”

“He hasn’t been feeling well mentally for a while but it wasn’t until I found a letter in his room that I realized how bad it was.” Bellamy grunts and looks down at his feet, seemingly embarrassed but refusing to talk yet.

“What kind of letter?” Gabriel’s voice is warm, calm, helps Clarke talk about this as much as it pains her. 

She leans on the chair and looks the doctor in the eyes.

“A suicide one.” at that Bellamy huffs and Gabriel turns his head to him once more.

“You disagree with that, Bellamy?”

“She’s making a big deal out of it.”

“How come?”

“I wrote it a long time ago.” his voice is weak, quiet and he is still staring at his feet “It didn’t mean anything.”

“It did and you know it.” Clarke grunts in response but Gabriel throws her a look suggesting this is not the time to fight, so she rests her back on the chair and relaxes her grip on the handles. “He’s always like this. Every time.”

“How exactly do you mean?” Gabriel asks warmly again and she crosses her arms on her chest.

“He refuses to let anyone help when he needs it. He plays it cool and says we’re overreacting while he suffers in silence.”

“Thanks for the psychoanalysis, princess. Maybe we shouldn’t have wasted the doctor’s time if we knew you’re so great at this.”

“Okay, we’re not here to fight, just to make this clear.” Gabriel interrupts them and Bellamy finally meets his eyes again even if just briefly “This won’t take us anywhere.”

Gabriel’s firm look makes them both mumble an apology before he clears his throat.

“Okay, let’s start over. You said the letter was written a long time ago and doesn’t mean anything now then how about you tell me how you’ve been feeling recently, Bellamy?”

“I’m good.” he shrugs and rests his hand back on his knee. Clarke cocks her eyebrow at Gabriel trying to say “See what I mean” but doesn’t say it out loud. 

“Now I know you’re in quite a lot of physical pain. How do you cope with that?”

Bellamy shrugs, refusing to give him a real answer.

“You know, Bellamy, the only way for me to help you out is if you talk to me.”

“It sucks, but I’m dealing with it.” he offers after a minute of complete silence and Clarke feels herself exhale. It was progress.

“I assume that you need to rely on people about some things. How does that make you feel?”

“How do you think?” Bellamy bites back but Gabriel doesn’t seem affected by the tone of his voice.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.”

“I hate it. I could deal with being hurt but when I drag other people down with me….that sucks even more than any physical pain.”

“Who do you think you’re dragging down with you?”

“My mom…most of all Clarke.”she opens her mouth to protest but Gabriel gives her a light shake of his head and she quiets down. This was after all, about Bellamy, not her. “She takes care of me all the time even though it’s not her job and I…I hate it.”

He looks away from her and her heart clenches at that.

“Why do you hate it?”

“Because she shouldn’t be wasting her time on this. On me.”

“Bellamy, we’ve talked about this.”

“Yes, we have but you refuse to listen!” he finally looks at her if only for a moment before he faces Gabriel “She has a whole life ahead of her. She’ll finish college, go off somewhere and be a great doctor and I don’t want to be the thing that always brings her back to our stupid little town.”

“When you say she has a whole life ahead of her, does this mean you don’t think you do?”

“That wasn’t my point.”

“Just answer,please.” Gabriel asks and Bellamy huffs.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why’s that?” Bellamy laughs and gestures at his fucked up body.

“Just look at me. I’m a mess. And I’ll keep being a mess for as long as I’m alive.”

“See? That’s what I have to deal with every day.” Clarke comments grumpily but he fists his hands.

“I don’t want you to have to deal with it, princess. That’s the point. I want you to be free. I want all of you to be rid of having to take care of me.”

“Bellamy, why do you think you are a burden to the people who love you?” Gabriel once again interrupts their fight and both Clarke and Bellamy look at him.

“Because I am.”

“How come?”

“There are days I can’t walk. Days when my leg is so stiff I need someone to help me get to the goddamn bathroom. Or days my head hurts so much I can’t get up. They all worry and try to do what they can but the truth is it’s useless.”

“But if it was them in that position would you stand by and watch them suffer?” he asks the question Clarke did only last week in the hospital and Bellamy hates being confronted with that argument.

“No, of course not, but that’s not the point.” he bursts “It’s not them! It’s me! I am the fucked up one.”

Gabriel sighs and closes the folder, leaning on the desk and looking at Bellamy’s eyes.

“Bellamy, do you think that if you had died, things would’ve been easier for your mom. For Clarke?”

“Yes.” he says without skipping a beat and Clarke bites her lip, trying not to let the tears go but she’s pretty sure she’ll lose that battle soon. 

“And do you think that if something goes wrong now and you die, you’d make their lives easier?”

He refuses to look at Clarke when he nods but he hears her whimper and put her hand over her mouth.

“Then I’m sorry but Clarke was right to bring you here. You need help.” Bellamy grips the handles of the chair and tries hard not to reach for Clarke’s hand to comfort her but the fact that he was the reason for her pain and he wished to calm her down made him feel like a hypocrite. 

“Have you tried to hurt yourself recently?” Bellamy shakes his head “Have you had suicidal thoughts?”

His voice is so quiet, Clarke would’ve skipped his reply if it wasn’t for the quietness of the room

“Yes.”

“Thank you for being honest.” Gabriel says gently as he stands up and circles around the desk, handing Clarke a bunch of tissues he took out of a box next to him. “Every year I take on a pro bono case for about six to nine months, I believe Clarke told you that?”

Bellamy nods once again pretending to be more fascinated with his shoes than the conversation.

“I’ve decided to chose you this time.” Clarke exhales next to him but Bellamy tenses at that. “That however means that you’ll need to work with me and work hard. Consider this like the PT you’re doing-I need you to talk and listen to what I suggest and have to say, work on your mental health so you can improve. Do you think you’re up for this?” 

He swallows hard and closes his eyes for a second before he feels Clarke’s hand on top of his. He looks up and sees her smile at him hopefully. He finally feels himself relax and nod.

“Bring it on, doc.”

* * *

Two weeks later he’s driving to the Griffin’s farm to take Clarke for a night out with their friends. Jake opens the door for him and tells him she’s upstairs still getting ready but calls her name which just earns him a yell from her saying “I’M COMING!” that meant it won’t be for another twenty minutes.

Jake nods at the kitchen and Bellamy follows him there climbing on one of the chairs on their kitchen island with difficulty but if the older man notices it, he doesn’t comment and instead hands him some cold lemonade which Bellamy drinks eagerly. 

“So how you’ve been, Bellamy?” Jake asks leaning on the counter and giving him a polite smile. 

He truly cared for him and sometimes Bellamy looked at him as a father figure in his life. Jake was smart not to ask uncomfortable questions but sometimes when needed would support Aurora in scolding Bellamy of taking care of himself. 

Even before he got hurt, he kept telling him bull riding is dangerous, that he should take care of himself because he’s had his own fair share of injuries, but back then Bellamy was bold and feeling invisible, as if nothing could ever bring him down. 

Oh how hard he had fallen.

“Good, it’s been good.”

“Yeah?” Bellamy nods “I hear you got chicken.”

“I want to add a few cows in the spring if I can manage to save some money.”

“I’m sure Octavia will be thrilled.” Bellamy chuckles at that and nervously runs his fingers through his hair.

“You know she wants a horse more than anything so I’m not exactly sure about that.” Jake smiles too and taps his fingers to the counter obviously thinking about something but not being sure how to begin. 

“Is there something you want to talk to me about?” Bellamy helps him in a way usually Clarke did with him if his first session with Gabriel was anything to go by.

“Actually yes” Jake clears his throat nervously and looks at the ceiling probably making sure Clarke’s still upstairs making noise and being busy. Whatever he was so jumpy about it involved his daughter. 

“Did she tell you about that summer internship in New York that she got?”

Bellamy furrows his eyebrows and feels himself tense, gripping the counter with his hands.

“No.” Jake sighs and runs his fingers through his hair.

“I wouldn’t have found about it either if I didn’t see the letter on the kitchen table last week.” he purses his lips “When I cornered her about it she said she’s not going.”

“Why not?” his voice comes out angry and he hates himself because this isn’t Jake’s fault. If anything, it’s his. 

He never asked her about her plans for the summer. There were still a few more months to go before she finished her second year.

“She said she wants to stay close to home, that she can get an internship here at the local hospital but I know this would be great for her and I don’t want her to lose this opportunity. We had a fight actually.” 

Jake and Clarke rarely fought about anything so if it got to this point then it was a big deal. 

“I was hoping you could help change her mind.”

“Of course. I’ll talk to her.” he promises and gives him a warm reassuring smile. 

They hear Clarke opening the door of her room and groaning about something she dropped before coming down the stairs. 

“I promise you, I won’t be the thing that keeps her here.” Jake eyes him curiously but doesn’t protest the statement which only confirms Bellamy’s fears that deep down this man didn’t consider him good enough to be in his daughter’s life. 

“Bellamy I-”

“Hey, I’m ready!” Clarke comes all flushed and smiling in all her messy adorable glory. 

She had put on a nice pair of jeans and a really pretty pink blouse that revealed her shoulder while her hair was tied in a high pony tail probably because she couldn’t deal with all the knots. 

The thought made him smile. He liked untying them when they lay in bed together back at his house and she always huffed and sighed while he scolded her to keep still. 

“Great, let’s go.” he plasters on a fake smile but inside he’s fuming. 

Had he lost himself in his own selfishness so much that he didn’t bother her about internships though he knew she was applying for some? Had he let his pain consume him so much that he didn’t bother about the world around him? About the most important people in it.

He thinks back to his mom and Octavia getting sick. How had he not noticed it sooner? How had he not done something about his mother’s eating habits or Octavia’s sneezing that kept on for days?

And Clarke? 

What else had he missed about her? How many more things that were happening right now did he not know about? 

What classes was she taking this semester? Had she thought more about making the choice between being a nurse or a doctor? 

And in the meantime she knew all there was to about him. 

The face he made when his leg was numb and he couldn’t get up. What she could do to ease it. How many pillows he needed to feel comfortable, how to spoon him at night so he doesn’t hurt himself or her.

She was the one to deal with his stubbornness. Take him to all kinds of doctors, urge him to do physical therapy, forcing him to go to Gabriel.

And what had he done?

Nothing.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen anymore. He wouldn’t allow it. 

He nurses a beer throughout the night and watches her dance with Jasper and Monty, joke with Miller, climb on his back and drink shots as he kept pretending everything’s fine. 

His bad leg was a good enough excuse that he was left at peace because none of their friends wanted to make him feel any more awkward about his inability to join them so he had the opportunity to step back and formulate a plan.

He wasn’t going to let them worry over him anymore. He wasn’t going to ignore their own lives just because he was in pain every day.

One time Diyoza told him he handles his pain very well. 

That the things she pushes him to do would make other people cry their guts out, but he was strong and carried it all well.

But did he really? 

Or did he just grit his teeth and went on while everyone else worried over him? 

Could he ever make them stop worrying? Maybe that was it. 

Clarke’s heart was so big, she’d always loved Octavia and him so much for her own good, always brought her old toys, food for them to eat, some of her dad’s old plaids for him because she knew he never bought clothes for himself. 

It’s who she was, a carer, that’s why she’d make such a good doctor. That’s why he had to make sure she took that internship. The only way to assure a better life for her was to help her take a step towards leaving their little town.

* * *

On the way home, she’s tipsy and when Clarke was drunk, she was her most adorable self. He took her in, carried her upstairs while she slapped his chest and scolded him saying he shouldn’t be lifting heavy things to which he had laughed and said “You ain’t heavy, princess.” 

When he laid her down on her bed, she pulled him down and nuzzled her nose in the crook of his neck.

“Don’t go.” she begged.

“I won’t.” he promised. “But we still need to take your clothes off and put the pj’s on okay?”

“No.” she had pouted but he laughed at that and helped her sit up. He had done this a thousand times before-taking care of sleepy buzzed Clarke, removing her clothes and trying not to let his eyes linger on her beautiful chest. She had been cute enough to tug his shirt and be like.

“I want this on”

“My shirt?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s an old washed out shirt.” he had laughed “You’d feel better in your pjs.”

“Shirt!” she had insisted and because she was a five year old child in that moment and because his heart had clenched at the sight of her so sweet and buzzed like this, he couldn’t say no so he took his plaid shirt off and then his blue shirt only to carefully pull it over her head.

Her fingers had moved up to his scarred chest and she was tracing the crooked jagged lines while he struggled to put her shorts up.

“You’re so beautiful.” she had mumbled and he felt himself blush at that. 

It’s not like she hadn’t seen him half naked before. He never wore a shirt around his house especially in the summer and she was the only person besides his mother and sister who he wasn’t ashamed of to see his scarred body but this was…different. 

It was somehow intimate and he had to push any thought of kissing her to the back of his mind while her index finger ran all over his chest. 

“You’re tickling me, princess.” she really was and he was trying not to smirk but the statement only made her more bold in her movements and instead she started jabbing his ribs and poking him on purpose while he squirmed under her. 

“Okay, time to put you to bed.” he had grabbed her hands and helped her down while pulling the blanket up.

“Come here.”

“I need to go home, I have an early shift tomorrow.” she gives him her biggest puppy eyes at that and her most adorable pout so he sighs and slides in next to her.

“Fine. Ten minutes and then I’m gone.” she whispers another quite cute “Yey” as she settles her head over his beating chest and wraps her arms around him.

“I know that grip, Griffin, you think you won’t be able to let me go if you squeeze tighter.”

“That’s cause you won’t be leaving.”

“Clarke-” he says with a warning as he runs his fingers through her knotty hair and she rubs her nose against his chest in protest of his movements.

“Please, Bell.” and he can’t deny her. 

Though tomorrow he has an early shift. Though he has to go to PT for the first time in over a month and get scolded by Diyoza for fucking himself up by skipping so many meetings. 

The thought of her spending countless nights in the past nine months next to him, without sleeping, checking on him, making sure he’s fine, was enough to remind him that he had to do this one thing for her.

She falls asleep a few minutes later. Her quiet adorable drunk snores fill the air and make him giggle but he can’t sleep. 

His mind is too loud, too restless. 

If he was back home he’d go outside and smoke his pipe-the only thing left of his father, or maybe nurse a beer, but here he had nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, stroke her head and think of what a crappy friend he’d been to her. 

And that’s when he notices a bunch of papers on her desk, some envelopes too and that gets him thinking. 

Carefully, he unwraps himself from her sleeping body and goes there, rummaging mindfully though the mess of papers until he finds what he’s looking for. 

“Dear Miss Griffin,

We’re happy to inform you that we’ve approved your application for an internship at Grace Memorial Hospital in New York in the follow summer.”

It went on, detailing the email she had to respond to for confirmation as well as some additional things concerning her arrival and her mentors who she could ask for more information in the next few months as well as praise of her excellent grades and interest in her future career. 

It was mostly platitudes but something in his chest grew and suffocated him, making his eyes sting with pride. 

He knew he shouldn’t pry but he couldn’t help it when he saw another page of all her grades of the semester-all A’s of course as well as a few other internship approval letters. 

He carefully sat down and took a piece of paper, copying the information that he needed on an empty piece of paper he finds on the floor.

If she wasn’t going to take care of her future, he was.


	4. I know you'd never leave me behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you all for reading this story! I know it isn't my most popular one and not that many people have gotten to enjoy it but I am very grateful to those of you who have.
> 
> I should warn that there's a liiiitle smut in this chapter. I'm quite horrible at this trope and that is the reason I don't tag it, because at the end of the day, when I look back on what I've written, it doesn't look smutty at all LOL.
> 
> I hope you will enjoy this last part. Comments are very much appreciated.
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr @jasperjoordan.

He’s successful in avoiding Clarke for the next week burying himself in work and going to PT twice which Diyoza wasn’t too happy about because “It’s not enough” but it was the best he could do right now. 

His mom had just gotten back to work and they were barely making ends meet. 

Surviving that month was going to be a tough thing, so he made sure to eat once at the diner and bring home as much food as he could for the both of them. 

The electricity bill still needed to be paid and he was trying to figure out how to make sure he got that covered. 

He had figured he could spare buying himself the new blood pressure medicine Nyko prescribed and instead use whatever was left of his last one. 

Just because it wasn’t working perfectly, didn’t mean it wasn’t doing any good at all so for now, he’d make do because he refused to let them live on candles until his mom got her next paycheck and they could afford it. 

He wouldn’t stand for it.

Clarke called him a couple of times, asking if he wanted to go out with the others or simply to check on him but he was short in his answers and always made an excuse that he had to work, which wasn’t a lie. 

He insisted she met with their friends without him and that they could catch up on the weekend to which she reluctantly agreed. 

Bellamy thought she could figure something was wrong but he tried to brush off her serious questions and ask about her instead. 

He made sure to do that all the time now. 

Whenever she asked him how his leg was today or if his head hurt he said a simple _“No, it’s all better with PT”_ , or _“That new medicine is working fine, I have no nosebleeds”_ before changing the subject to her. 

He knew Clarke wasn’t stupid and to make sure she believed him, he had to give her reasonable answers. 

He was also aware she sometimes talked to Diyoza. They had some agreement when it came to him, so she either called her or passed by the hospital to ask how his progress was and he realized he had to think of that angle too. 

He’d worked hard whenever he went there and tried to hide his pain as best as he could.

Of course he couldn’t be sure if he was too successful at that but at least he was keeping up a good facade so that Clarke wouldn’t get too suspicious and so far he could say he was succeeding.

He had another appointment with Gabriel on his own because Clarke was busy with classes and it had gone what he would call, relatively okay, but because she felt bad for skipping this one she had insisted to go with him next week so here they were once more driving to Sanctum. 

She had tried talking to him, making conversation but he had been sparse in his responses and instead rest his head on the window and pretended to sleep, not sure how much she actually bought his behavior. 

Though he had promised Jake he’d talk to her about the internship, he still was waiting for the right moment but what he hadn’t anticipated was how angry he’d get when he saw her this afternoon. 

Suddenly, all the guilt washed over him and he wanted to scream at her to just grab this opportunity and go, wanted to fight with her for even thinking about declining it but he realized it wouldn’t do any good, so he tried to bury his anger deep inside and instead give her polite but warm smiles and hope she wouldn’t notice something was up.

She did, of course she did and once inside Gabriel’s office that became apparent.

They’ve just exchanged a few simple platitudes when Gabriel switches his attention from Clarke to him.

“You’re awfully quiet over there” he offers him a smile trying to ease the tension in the room “Is there something you want to share?”

“I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.” and he was, work was hectic today and he hadn’t been able to sit down for a minute which resulted in every bone in his leg feeling as if it was on fire.

“Maybe you should switch your appointment to Mondays when you don’t have to work a full day.” Clarke suggested in a friendly manner probably because she had noticed he feels bad or because he was annoyed at everything-this entire situation, her being here with him, once again holding his hand when he needs, driving an hour just to get him here instead of maybe going out for coffee with her classmates back on campus, he couldn’t help but huff and mumble under his nose.

“Something’s clearly bothering you, Bellamy, maybe you should share with the group?” Gabriel suggests once more and Bellamy wants to laugh. 

The group-it was him and Clarke, how was that a group? But he just gripped the chair’s handles and intently stared at his feet when he spoke up.

“You seem to know my schedule by heart, princess.” it comes out venomously, horribly rude and he wants to bang his head in the wall till it bleeds but he can’t get rid of that anger inside him. 

“What do you mean by that?” she is taken aback by the sound of his voice and turns to him but he still refuses to look at her so instead he laughs in that cruel cold way.

“Just seems unfair considering I know shit about you right now.”

“Bellamy, I tell you everything.”

“Funny.” he finally meets her eyes “Considering I wouldn’t have found out about the internship you got in New York this summer if it wasn’t for your father.”

“That is-” she tries but he cuts her off.

“Who by the way is so damn worried about you, he asked me to talk to you and convince you not to throw your future away.”

“That wasn’t necessary. I don’t plan on going.”

“And why’s that?” Gabriel intervenes trying to get a hold of the situation before they murder each other, feeling the tension growing tenfold since Bellamy started the subject. 

“That’s what I’d like to know too.” Bellamy spits out again and he hates himself so much in this moment for hurting her like that but somewhere at the back of his mind he knew that the only way this would go through will be with a fight. 

Clarke was as stubborn as he was if not more.

“I just want to stay close to home.” she says sheepishly now as if she did something wrong and he craves to touch her hand, squeeze it, promise her it will be okay, but he can’t. 

If he wants her to go, he can’t do that no matter how much his heart aches to.

“No, you want to be close to me. So you can keep holding my hand and taking care of me.”

“Why are you being so damn rude right now?” she finally defends herself and he smiles when he recognizes the familiar fire in her eyes. 

A fire that suggested she’s up for this challenge and she’s not backing down. 

“What if I don’t want to go a hundred miles from home? What if I just want to stay here and do an internship at our hospital? Our doctors are excellent, you know that.”

“Yes, firsthand but that’s not the point princess.”

“What is your point, Bellamy” Gabriel’s patience for them exceeds Bellamy’s wildest expectations. 

The guy couldn’t be shaken by anything which he guessed came with the profession.

“Why do you think she should go?”

“Because it’s for her own good!” he raises his voice again and tries to keep it together but he’s just so angry.

“Admit it, Clarke. This isn’t about wanting to stay close to the farm and your dad or whatever bullshit excuse you fed Jake. This is about me. And I won’t stand for it! I won’t sit by and watch you ruin your life just because your heart is too big and you can’t let me go.”

“Bellamy, that’s not it-”

“It is. You know it. I know it. Even the doc over there knows it, right?”

“Okay, why don’t we let her explain.” the perfect mediator again “How good would be this internship for you?” he asks with curiosity which Bellamy was sure wasn’t fake. 

“It’d…help me learn a lot.” Clarke admits and Bellamy lets a gloating “Ha” which earns him a dirty look “But I could do the same here, I could still make progress and I haven’t even decided what it is I want to specialize in-”

“So going there could help you do that, princess. I don’t know why you’re being so damn stubborn!” he intervenes once again and she bawls her hands into fists.

“I’m not being stubborn and you’re wrong, this isn’t about you. It’s about my mother.” that surprises him and his eyes go wide while she slumps in her seat and rubs her forehead tiredly.

“I’m pretty sure she arranged for that internship to happen because it’s the same hospital she used to work at before she married my father and I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to ever take anything from her, you know that, Bellamy.”

She looks him in the eyes and tries to make him understand-he sees the pain there, the little nine year old girl who cried in his arms because her mom left and never came back and called twice a year on Christmas and her birthday. 

The girl who still got upset when her dad sometimes cried on their wedding anniversary or went out of town on the day she left them because he couldn’t handle it. 

He pushes his chair closer to her and reaches to take her hand. It’s warm and sweaty like it usually was when she was nervous. Talking about her mom made her really anxious which he hated.

“I know.” he rubs his thumb over her hand “But I still think it’s bullshit.” she jerks her head up at that “I know you, Clarke. I know there’s this urge inside you, that want, to do better, to be great, to help people. Your heart is so big princess, you give so much of it away sometimes I’m scared” his voice hitches.

“I’m so scared that you’ll give too much and people will keep hurting you and you’ll be in pain and I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to stay here, to keep getting hurt by me.”

“Bellamy, you’re not hurting me! You’ve never done anything to hurt me!” she protests appalled at his statement. Gabriel’s awfully quiet watching their exchange which means he wants them to talk it out first and then give his input.

“Tell me-” he sighs “Be honest and just tell me, am I not the reason or at least one of the reasons you don’t want to leave?” she squeezes her eyes shut and pulls closer to him, so close their foreheads are almost touching.

“It is.” she admits and his heart skips a beat “But Bellamy, I-”

“I know.” he says fondly “So do I.” he meant it, he did with all his heart but he couldn’t say it out loud because if he did she’d never leave and he wouldn’t live with himself if he was the reason for it. 

He brushes his lips against her forehead not caring how this all much look to Gabriel because right now he had forgotten all about him. 

“Which is why I send them an email.”

“What?” she pulls away and that fire burns again.

“I saw your letter.They told you to reply in the following week but you didn’t, so I send an email letting them know you have been taking care of someone very close to you and you’ll let them know about taking it as soon as possible.”

“Bellamy!” she stands up “What the hell! You have no right to-”

“I know and I don’t care. I’d do it again if I could. You’re going, princess.”

“Bellamy, that is my decision, my things you got involved in!”

“And you went through mine and found a letter so here we are, right?”

“Okay, Clarke maybe you should sit down.” Gabriel suggests and she does but she’s still fuming, her hand pulled away from him the minute he told her what he’d done and leaving him feeling cold and distant. 

“Bellamy, she has a point here.”

“I know. It wasn’t good what I did but it was the only way to make sure she’s not going to throw everything she’s worked so hard away.” she shakes her head angrily but he reaches for her again.

“Clarke, please” she stubbornly keep staring at her feet “If you don’t want to go, don’t go, I’m not making you but just…think about it. Give yourself a choice. Don’t dismiss it because of your big heart.”

“You keep saying that.” she shakes her head and the tears fall down on her lap. He reaches to cup her cheek and brush them away “But it’s you who’s like that, not me.”

“How do you mean, Clarke?” Gabriel chimes in once again and reaches to pass Bellamy some tissues she can clean herself up with. 

His fingers are so gentle on her cheeks, she wants to turn her head just that much and kiss his knuckles.

“He hides his pain away.” she laughs sadly like she did so many times when she was watching him being a stubborn ass trying to walk when he should be in bed. 

“He takes it all no matter how hard and he won’t let anyone know how bad it is.”

“That’s not true. You can always read me with such ease.” he says with a light smile but she once again shakes her head.

“I know…” she turns to Gabriel then “I can see sometimes but what I sense is nothing to what he’s truly feeling. Even now I know you’re in pain, so much pain but you won’t tell me.”

“Is that true, Bellamy?” Gabriel asks him then and Bellamy shrugs, not certain what to say.

“See? How can I leave him when this is how he acts?” she voices her fears for once and Bellamy’s eyebrows furrow at her confession. 

“He passed out last week and never told anyone. That got him a concussion and we wouldn’t find out about it till I insisted we went to the hospital to get him checked out.”

“Clarke-”

“What if something else happens?What if you fall and there’s no one to get to you? What if you feel bad and not tell anyone and just let yourself get worse till you pass out some day and I just-”

“That’s not happening!” he squeezes her hand again “My mom’s there and you know how scary she can be when she is mad at me.” Clarke laughs at that and keeps brushing her tears away “I’ll be fine, it’s just a few months.”

“What if it’s more?” her voice is quiet, so barely audible he’s not sure if he even heard her right but he looks at her with confusion “What if they offer me to do a semester there?”

“Then you do it.” he says no doubt in his voice, refusing to let her see the pain of his heart bleeding and make her realize that it’s stronger than the one in his leg or arm.

“Bellamy-”

“Clarke, listen to me.” he takes her hand again “What we have” he smiles fondly at her and reaches to brush another tear away, hoping it’d be the last one “It’s not going away, princess.” and he was certain of this, hoping she could feel it all written on his face too-the emotions, the understand that they have, the gentle touches that calmed their fast beating hearts, the warmth of their hugs that made the world not seem like such a terrible awful place.

“Every day is hard” he says that and looks at Gabriel too “You’re right, sometimes it hurts too much and I’m not saying anything about it because in truth…I don’t think I can describe it.” it’s his voice that’s breaking now “I get sad, I get angry…so angry sometimes.”

“Why so?” Gabriel asks curiously.

“Because this is my life. And it’s all it will ever be for as long as I’m on this earth. Because it’s so dark sometimes it’s hard to breathe. Because some times I pass out in my bed and the pain is so consuming I’m afraid…I’m scared I’ll fall asleep and I won’t wake up and I never would’ve gotten the chance to tell you-” he swallows hard and feels his own tears burn his cheeks “I won’t tell you how much you mean to me.”

“You’re scared.” Gabriel concludes and he nods.

“I am. But then I tell myself it’s going to be fine.”

“How?”

“I think of Clarke.” he explains simply turning to her “I see your face and your beautiful blond hair that shines so bright it blinds me sometimes. I remember your smile, your laugh, your hand in mine, your head over my beating heart and…and I know it will be okay.”

“Oh, Bell” she covers her mouth with her hand.

“You make any pain worth it, Clarke.” he tries to make his voice come out stronger and not shaky “You give me hope, you make the world bearable.” he clears his throat.

“But I’m not your responsibility.” he says clearly and looks at Gabriel “And you are not there to save me. I don’t think you can do that as much as we both want it.” he sighs tiredly “Only I can save me.” Gabriel nods in approval at that “That’s why I’m here.”

* * *

The drive back home is quiet but not like before. 

They just have a lot on their minds and after they went through the worst of the conversation Gabriel talked some to them himself, pointed out some problems and things Bellamy could work on but overall it felt cathartic and surely like it was a long way coming. 

When they make it to the house they find it dark.

“Mom and O are out with Kane” he gives as an explanation when he sees her confused expression. 

Clarke raises an eyebrow, obviously surprised he’s not making a big deal out of it but he just shrugs. 

He thought about it, saw no point in fighting it. 

If Kane treated his mom and his sister well, then he had no problem with him as long as it stayed that way. 

“They need someone who’s not fucked up in their lives too” he mumbles and she opens her mouth to fight but he simply shakes his head “They won’t be back till later.”

“I should probably go.”

“Or you could stay?” he asks hopefully and gives her a boyish shy look “Please, stay.” she squeezes his hand and gives him a small smile in agreement. 

In that moment they both understand that this is not about what happened today, what they said to each other, how they hurt each other and healed each other back. 

They were Bellamy and Clarke. 

They always will be Bellamy and Clarke and they could spend a night together at his place being there for one another like they always had. 

After the emotional turmoil that happened at Gabriel, it was probably the only thing that could mend their crying hearts.

She follows him inside and they start doing things in sync, without even having to talk. 

He nods at the TV and she smiles-they are going to watch a movie, so he headed to make pop corn but when she saw how harsh he was limping and leaning on the furniture around she caught his elbow and shook her head which meant she got it. 

He headed to the couch and turned the lights and the TV on, not even bothering to take his old boots off. 

“If your mom saw you like this, she’d give you a speech.”

“Good thing she can’t then.” he smirks when she settles next to him but even now she can see how hard it is for him to even sit up so she pushes him down to her lap and his curly hand ends up right where she loves it so she can run her fingers through while they watched.

If anyone saw them, they’d think they’ve been married for at least 25 years. First they fought for the pop corn but then he held it over his stomach while she ate and fed him some when he was too mesmerized by the movie to remember eating. 

“You okay?” she asks when she notices him struggling to find a more comfortable position but he just grunted in response “My god, you’re such an idiot.” she mumbles in a mild scolding manner and he smiles innocently secretly loving it when she’s a bit mad while she huffs and puffs only to move one of the pillows from behind her back under his probably already swollen knee.

“But now you’re not comfortable” he protests and she shushes him with a stroke of his curly head. 

He keeps staring stubbornly at her until he gets all soft and stops paying attention to the TV while she’s still chewing pop corns. 

When she feels his nose graze her stomach her breath hitches and he rolls over, so that his hand rests on her back, spreading a familiar warmth all over her. 

“My god, do you know how loud you chew?”

“Yes, I’ve been told. By you. At least a hundred times.”

“It’s very un-lady like.”

“Good thing I’m a cowgirl and not a lady then.” he chuckles at that and when his hand moves under her shirt and his thumb touches her side she stops eating and swallows hard. 

“Bellamy-” this was unfamiliar territory. 

Kind of, actually. 

It’s not like they haven’t been touchy feeling like that before, it’s not like she hadn’t traced his chest or his back with her fingers or kissed his neck and cheeks but after today, after their almost confession of their feelings this was…different. 

_Electric._

He looks up at her and there’s so much emotion in his eyes, so much pure love and softness that her heart aches at the sight of him like this. 

She cups his face and leans down kissing his forehead and staring at his eyes with fondness as she brushes the curls away and stares at the scars on his face.

“Clarke” his voice comes out hoarse, a little worried but she just smiles and when she does he relaxes under her, removing the bowl away from his stomach and sitting up a bit.

“Don’t stand, I like looking down at you.” she mumbles and puts her arm on his back, helping him raise himself up a bit but still be in her embrace. 

He rests his head on her chest and plays with a lonely strand of hair falling on the side of her face. 

The fact that he’s not crushing her completely with his weight made her think of how much of it he must’ve lost, but his arms still flexed, they were still strong and when she drags her hand up and down his bad one, he buries his nose in the crook of her neck and then kisses her collarbone. 

It’s light at first, easy, fast, but then when she doesn’t pull or fight him but instead tightens her grip around him, he kisses once more, harder, wetter this time.

“Bellamy…”

“Yeah, princess?”

“I like this.” she feels him smirk as he moves up to her cheeks to her beauty mark, pecks her nose making her giggle and then he settles on her lips. 

He’s half raised now despite her protests and he moves so that both his legs are on her sides. She has no idea how he even bent that poor old knee but he seems to be having a good time so bringing the matter of pain into this would be a mistake. 

He hovers over her lips for a second, stares at her eyes, always the gentleman, waiting for confirmation. 

She cups his cheeks and looks at him, getting lost in his chocolate brown eyes, in their warmth and their passion.

“Everything inside me wants to do this” he swallows hard and pulls away just a bit which makes her pout just a little which in turn results in him smiling for a second before he keeps on “Everything.”

“So do it.” she dares him. He suddenly takes her hand and puts it on his chest.

“Can you feel it?” he asks and she nods “It’s beating all for you.” it is, and it’s beating way too fast for her liking but she has to give it to the emotions and hope it’s not something bad. 

“My heart’s crazy for you, princes but my head-”

“Your head what?”

“Well, even though it got fucked as hell it still has a few brain cells floating around.”

“It does?” she tries with a light joke which makes him smile.

“Clarke, you know what I mean. This will make everything harder.”

“Bellamy, you’re thinking too much.” she says seriously now too “We always make it more complicated than it needs to be.”

“That’s true.” he looks away shyly for a moment but she pulls his head back.

“If you want to kiss me, then just do it.” he swallows hard but still there’s some lingering doubt in his eyes, something stopping him so she rests her forehead against his.

“Bell, do you want to kiss me?”

“Most definitely, princess.”

“Then what are you waiting-” and before she can finish her question his lips are on hers and she feels whole. 

It’s stupid, it should be stupid how she thinks of that right now, but the warmth that spreads through her makes her burst with joy. 

She smiles into his mouth and he pulls away for a second before he kisses her again. 

_And again._

_And again._

Her hands roam through his hair, his move up and down her back and then she’s pushing him down on the couch he was lying onto just a few minutes ago and she’s kissing him like their lives depended on it.

In some ways, she thinks they did.

“Oh damn-” he curses when she moves down his neck and shoves her hands under his shirt, lifting it up while he plays with her and tries to sneak higher up to her breasts but the angle doesn’t allow him to. “I should be the one undressing you.”

“Who says so?” she whispers and her breath fans his face.

“I do.” he moves up and pulls her shirt off as he takes the lead and kisses her chest and cups her breath. 

“Princess….” he says between kisses “You’re so beautiful.”

She takes his shirt off too and now they’re both half naked.

“So are you.” his face falls at that and he looks down at his scars but doesn’t say anything because it’s not about him. 

_This is all for Clarke._

He switches their positions, pushes her down on the other side, his hands roaming all over her body till he fools with her bra and undoes the claps, staring at her breasts for the first time ever. 

“The look on your eyes makes me think you like what you see.” she jokes and he blushes as he buries his nose in the valley between her boobs.

“I definitely do.”

She lets herself get lost in the feeling of him all over her until he is a dick who blows a raspberry in her stomach and makes her ticklish. 

His hand trails with the waist band of her jeans, tugs at the belt but before he decides to keep going, he stands up and shoves one arm under her knees and the other under her arms and raises her up.

“BELLAMY!” she squeaks and he laughs at that as he heads for his room “Bellamy, let me go! PUT ME DOWN! Bell, no, you shouldn’t be carrying me, your leg!” and he is still indeed limping but he doesn’t falter, he carries her while she bangs her little fists on his chest angrily and then gets fascinated with a freckle on his shoulder that’s bigger than the other ones around it and starts tracing it with her finger which in turn makes him ticklish.

“Unless you want me to drop you, you gotta stop that!” he huffs while he limps slowly to the bed and she feels so horrible for making him struggle but before she can protest he carefully lays her down and climbs over her, continuing his hard and passionate work with amazing concentration from his side.

Taking her jeans off is a mess and he curses while doing so before throwing them on the floor with annoyance and moving to her stomach, kissing her there endlessly while his hands fool with her breasts. 

“You got a thing for belly buttons or what?” she jokes and he smiles sheepishly again when he glances at her but then rests his head on her stomach and drags his finger up and down always stopping at her panties.

“You’re so beautiful.” she runs her fingers through his curls.

“So are you.”

“I’m all scars.”

“No you’re not.” she furrows her eyebrows and tugs at his head making him lift it up and rest his chin on her stomach “You’re not.” she takes his shoulders and pulls him up to her, making him lie on the pillow near her while she kisses his face and his lips. 

She doubts they’d do much more tonight but that was fine, they had time, they didn’t have to rush and the passionate kisses and their hands all over each other, that was better than anything else. 

They could be hot and fast one second and calm and soft the next and _she was in love with their love._

She buries her face in his chest and traces the scar on his bad arm.

“Bell.”

“Yes,princess?”

“I’m happy.” his arm tightens around her as he pulls her close.

“So am I, Clarke.” she feels his lips on the top of her head “So am I.”

Her heart clenches because she can’t remember the last time she heard him say that and she wonders if it had ever happened at all for him until now. 

The thought makes her sad so she lifts her head up and kisses the place above his fast beating heart as he buries his nose in her head and breathes her in. 

They fall asleep like this, entangled in each other and later that night, she wakes up to his lips on her neck and his hand on her belly, trailing lower and lower.

In the morning she wakes up from his lips on her neck, moving up to her cheek, then her still closed eyelid as she groans and waves her hand to push him off.

“Sleep.” she mumbles and buries her head in the pillow which makes him chuckle. 

During the night they’ve shifted and now he was spooning her, half his body over hers, the warmth making her tingle and want to turn around and just give him a sweet wet kiss but Clarke in the morning was a lazy being and so she relaxed on the pillow as he kept annoying her. 

His mouth was everywhere, on her back, her arm, his fingers tracing her spine his curls tickling her cheek.

“You won’t let me go, will you?” she huffs frustrated and he chuckles.

“You need to wake up, princess.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it is a good day.” that finally makes her roll over on her back and stare up at him with sleepy eyes. 

He was smiling down at her, his head perched on his hand while his other moved up and down her stomach lazily.

A good day. 

That didn’t just mean it was sunny outside. It wasn’t a sappy comment or a cliche announcement one would say after waking up the morning after finally kissing their best friend who they’ve been in love with for years. 

_No. A good day for Bellamy meant a day without pain._

Those happened very rarely and she had only witnessed one. 

Ever since he got hurt he must’ve had just two or three days where the pain ebbed away and he was able to move and do things almost like before. 

“You don’t hurt?” she asks putting her hand on his cheek and staring at his eyes.

“I don’t hurt.” he kisses her sweet nose “We should use most of this because tomorrow it will be gone.”

“Okay.” she throws the blanket off and tries to sit up when he wraps an arm around her waist and pushes her down, only to move above her and kiss her “Bellamy!”

“Didn’t mean we got to start right away.” he says between kisses as his hand moves under her shirt like last night and plays with her left breast. 

She arches her back and feels the wetness gather, making her move her legs between his and grind on it hard just to get back at him.

“Your mom’s here, Bellamy.” she warns when his lips move to her neck again and his hand teased her nipple. 

She could hear Octavia’s childish joyful chatter in the other room, the smell of pancakes sneaking under Bellamy’s door and teasing her nostrils. 

“We need to get up.” she gently pushes him away and he pretends to be grumpy about it but then she pushes him down, reversing their position and peppering his face with kisses which makes him laugh and what a beautiful sound that was.

When they make it out of their room, they are both a little too disheveled and both Octavia and Aurora raise their eyebrows at their state. 

That is, until Bellamy notices Kane on the table, helping himself to some coffee.

“What’s he doing here?” Clarke squeezes his hand in warning and Aurora purses her lips in that dangerous way she did when she wanted to scold the hell out of her son. 

“Did he spend the night?”

“I came early this morning to bring breakfast. Promised Octavia some pancakes last night.” Kane explains with a polite smile, pretending the tension in the room wasn’t there.

“Help yourself to some.” he offers and Bellamy, though tense urges Clarke to join them at the table before he heads to the kitchen where his mom is washing last night’s dishes.

“You know it won’t kill you to be nice to him.” she whispers and turns the water on, so they couldn’t be heard, though Octavia’s excited chatter about the movie they saw last night was already filling the room.

“It might.” Bellamy huffs and grabs the towel before she hands him a plate for him to dry. “So listen, I’m gonna take Clarke out today. Are you and O good on your own?” it was both their days off but if she had some plans he could stay behind and take care of his sister. 

He always would and he knew Clarke wouldn’t mind it either.

“Of course.” Aurora looks at him curiously and gives him a knowing smile “Something feels different about you two.” he ducks his head at his mom’s comment and focuses on the plates she passes him before he feels her hand on his neck and is forced to look at her.

“I’m glad, Bellamy. She’s a great girl.”

“She is.” he clears his throat and changed the subject “Anyway, it’s a good day” he tells her and Aurora looks at him with light in her eyes, with hope. 

He almost hates it because he knows she’ll want him to always feel like that except it can’t. 

Not anymore and he hated when those days come and she got all optimistic that her son could once again be the boy he was before.

“So I want to make most out of it before it’s gone, you know?”

“Of course.” she reaches to squeeze his wrist.

“Thanks, mom.” he kisses her head and takes another plate from her.

“Nothing too crazy, though, okay?”

“Promise.”

“I know that smirk, Bellamy Blake.You’re up to something.” she says in warning and he just laughs. 

“I’ll be okay, mom.” he puts the last of the plates on top of the pile before he heads back to the table where he gives Clarke a sign that it’s time to go and wraps his sister from behind which earns him a protest from Octavia. 

“Where are you going?” she asks when he starts putting his boots on and she pats to the door, staring at him hopefully.

“Clarke and I got some things to do. You hang out with mom and Kane today.” he can’t believe he is including his boss in his sister’s plans for the day but he pushes the thought at the back of his mind.

Octavia crosses her arms over her chest and smiles.

“Does those plans include some k-i-s-s-i-n-g?”

“Oh, look who learned how to spell!” he jokes and kisses her cheek before opening the door for Clarke who’s blushing so hard “Buy, kiddo!”

“Buy, loser!” she sticks her tongue out and he laughs as they head for his truck.

“Are we that transparent?” she asks once they make it inside and he turns the engine on, heading for the town. “Does everyone suddenly know that we kissed?”

“We did more than kissing but I guess?” she slaps his arm and he pokes her rib. 

Sometimes they were children. Literal kids

“It’s all the sexiness my perfect body constantly emanates, princess. Can’t help it.”

“I had forgotten that a good day brings back your impossible male bravado.”she reaches her hand and places it on his neck rubbing her thumb up and down as he drove. 

She took the time to look at him and he was truly glowing today. 

His arm wasn’t shaking and held the wheel at a tight grip, his cheeks had a flush but not from a fever-it was a healthy natural redness and his leg-well the limp could never be truly gone but he moved lighter, faster, she had noticed it when he took down the stars from their house to the truck. 

And yet she had to ask. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I am.” he covers her hand with his briefly before focusing back on the road.

“Okay, so what should we do today?”

“I want to ride.” she was pretty sure that would be his wish. 

He hadn’t been on a horse in months, since he passed out at their place and then left the next morning, actually, so she knew he was itching to do it and though it worried her, realizing it could be dangerous for him, she was well-aware she couldn’t stop it. 

“I thought we could take Stubborn and Moreen and go down to the creek.

There was a river that passed through Clarke and Jake’s land, all the way eastern to their farm, about an hour or so from the house. 

Jake liked letting the cattle there but with time it became Clarke and Bellamy’s place. 

They were the first ones to discover it after Jake bought that additional piece of land and on hard days-like the anniversary of her mom’s leaving or the death of his father, they liked going there and lazying the day, not really doing anything but swim in the creek and ride the horses or stuff their asses with delicious junk food after which they usually fell asleep under an old three that had somehow grown there and served as a great cover from the sun.

“I can approve of this plan.” she promises and he looks at her briefly trying to find doubt or disagreement in her eyes but when she shakes her head and kisses his cheek, he makes a turn for the town’s center and stops in front of Kane’s diner.

They buy burgers and an insane amount of fries as well as three milkshakes-two of which are for Clarke, because she could eat and never get stuffed. 

They often competed who could eat more and she always won leaving him grumpy for days. 

After the accident they hadn’t had fun like that for a while simply because even making him eat a whole meal at dinner was a challenge. 

But today was a good day and so besides the burgers they filled two brown bags of junk food and a pack of beer with his fake ID as well as a big bucket of ice cream which Clarke claimed she’ll eat half of before putting them in his car cooler and taking off for the farm. 

Jake was off for the weekend again, making some horse trades upstate which was a relief for Bellamy because if his mom and O could see that something was different about their relationship, so could Jake and despite him being like a father to Bellamy, he wasn’t sure how the old man would take on this turn of events.

Stubborn welcomed Bell joyfully, nibbling at his shirt and sniffing him for carrots, which he got, while Bellamy saddled him. 

“You sure your leg’s fine for riding?”

“Will you stop worrying?” he groans as he fixes the reins. Clarke was already on Moreeen, insisting on carrying most of the stuff they bought, so he could get on Stubborn easily. 

Bellamy shivered for a moment before he raised his good leg to the stirrup. 

_He could do this. He could._

_And he did._

He threw himself on Stubborn’s back almost effortlessly and only felt the stabbing pain in his leg once on the horse, but it was there for a moment too long, a moment in which he gripped the reins with his hands and squeezed his legs around Stubborn’s back to ground himself and his pain. 

The horse obviously felt something was wrong but he didn’t move an inch, waiting patiently for Bellamy to pull at the reins.

“Bellamy-” Clarke who had obviously noticed his discomfort brought Moreen by his side and reached for his elbow but he raised his hand.

“Just a second.”

“Okay.” 

“Come on.” he begged in his head, hoping that his good day didn’t just last a few hours “Come on, please, let me have this.” he mumbled through teeth when he didn’t feel the pain leave him right away. 

Instead it got stronger and he felt his leg convulse but he shook his head stubbornly, trying to get rid of it. 

“Bellamy, we can-”

“No!” he cut her off and breathed in and out “No.” he reached her hand out and he took it, squeezing it hard, before breathing in and out in and out. 

He didn’t know how long they stayed like this but finally, he felt the pain ebb away, get quieter, though still present and finally he lift his head and smiled.

“We can go now.” he announces and she exhales making him hate that he got her to worry about him.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” he pushed Stubborn forward and soon after she followed “Race you there!”

“Oh, it’s on, Blake!” she yells as she tries to catch up on him but Stubborn hasn’t been pushed in a while and now he was galloping with everything he had in him. 

Just like Bellamy, he had been kept in place far too long and he couldn’t bear it no more-he was finally free and he’d let the world know it.

They get to the river in less than an hour all covered in sweat and panting. 

Clarke insists on helping him down Stubborn so they don’t repeat the episode from earlier and after tying them by the river and putting their stuff under the tree, Bellamy starts taking his shirt off.

“Time for a swim, princess!”

“You know I hate getting wet!” she protests but her eyes linger on his naked chest and then trail lower once he starts taking his pants off and leaves nothing but his boxers on. 

“Then by all means, you can stay over there while I dump my incredibly hot incredibly sweaty body in the perfectly cold creek.”

“Oh you’re mean. You’re so mean!” she huffs and groans as she starts taking her plaid off. 

It’s his turn to stare at her from the water and marvel at her beauty. She had the perfect body-her soft stomach, her round curves, god he couldn’t wait to put his hands on her legs then kiss her chest, her perfect breasts.

“Keep the hat on.” he commands just as she’s about to take it off. She gives him a confused look but he just smirks “Trust me, princess.”

“You and your weird fetishes, Blake.”

“Just get in here already.” she’s way too slow joining him, yelping every time the water got higher so he had no choice but to carefully approach her, grab her wrist out of nowhere and pull her all in. 

That of course, made her scream.

“BELLAMY BLAKE! UGH, YOU COMPLETE ASS! I HATE YOU! DID YOU HAVE TO DO THAT?”

“Yep.”

“WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE!” she splashes some water in his face and he chuckles.

“Well, I couldn’t wait all day for you.”

“Couldn’t- OH MY GOD!” she hits his chest with her fists and he lets her because it’s fun until finally he manages to reach down and capture her lips with his. 

She’s smart, though, using this to her advantage and putting her arms on his shoulders only to raise her whole weight over and dunk him down underwater. 

She keeps him there for mere seconds but when he comes back up and his curls are sticking to his hair he is pissed off too.

_“OH, it’s so ON, princess!”_

They play in the water for what must be at least an hour. 

He wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her in the air with her feet kicking and her arms trying to grab at his face and distract him. 

Then they swim around slowly until she wraps her arms around his waist and they kiss for a long while till she feels something press at the side of her leg and he pulls away much to her protests. 

After, he puts his hands under her knees and arms all bridal style, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, till he throws her in the air out of nowhere and she splashes water all over them. 

The hat he had asked her to leave on was long forgotten, having her throw it away on the shore when he got it wet so her hair was free, sticking in every direction as much as his curls had before they got wet. 

Finally, she drags him outside and he wraps a towel over her shoulders, helping her warm up, rubbing his hands over her arms and spreading a blanket over the sun so she could lay down and dry. 

He never joins her, instead distributing the food they bought and checking on the horses, before throwing his shirt over her arms and moving them back under the tree so they could eat in peace.

She throws fries at his face and he laughs at the mustache she gets when drinking her milkshake and making a mess out of herself. 

They are both stuffed as hell when finally they lay down and she rests her head on his chest.

“This is good.” she mumbles tracing her finger up and down on the jagged scar covering his left side.

“I was aiming for perfect but-” that earns him a slap on the chest and he kisses her forehead in apology.

“How could I leave when we could do this whenever we want?” she says a bit sad and lets his fingers run through her hair, untying the knots. 

“Because you’ll come back eventually.” he hums and his voice reverberates all around “This isn’t going anywhere, Clarke.” he reminds her once again.

She lifts her head resting her chin on his stomach.

“And you?”

“I’ll be here waiting.” he promises and that makes her move up and kiss him. 

She throws her leg on both his sides when it turns more passionate and soon enough, her shirt or more like, his shirt, is flying off on the ground and his lips are on her breasts.

This time, when she feels the bulge in his boxers, she sneaks her hand under the hem and touches him for the first time since last night he refused to make it about himself.

“Clarke-” he pulls away from her neck just barely and cups her cheek. “We don’t have to do anything.” he assures staring at her beautiful blue eyes.

“What if I want to?” escapes her lips while her fingers move back up and grab the hem of his boxers but don’t pull them down just yet.

“Then we can, but again” he kisses her lips briefly before moving up again, his nose touching hers, nudging it in a gentle loving way “We don’t have to. He smiles as he strokes her hair back and rubs his thumb on her cheek.”I don’t want you to feel pressured. We kissed only yesterday.”

“Ah and here I thought that big sexy Bellamy Blake went home with two girls under his arms and never thought twice about it.” she jokes but his face falls at that and he looks away ashamed at himself.

“I am no longer that guy.”

“Hey-” she turns his chin to her and makes him meet her eyes once more “I know. I was just teasing.” it’s true that he had a phase where he slept with a different girl every night especially when his career was at it’s peak. 

Girls drooled over him from the moment he set foot on the arena and climbed the bull or the horse and Clarke used to roll their eyes as they discussed his “sexy arms” and his “charming smile” or his “dirty looks” but now…now all she could see was the boy under all those fake built walls. 

The boy she knew almost her entire life. The boy she wanted to be close to in every way there was.

She pulls his boxers down and he smiles at her determination but he gets lost trailing kissed down her stomach and taking too long to pull her pants down. 

She’s enjoying it, but she needs him and she makes it known when she puts her hands on his arms like last night and drags him back up.

“Bellamy-” she whispers between kisses “you should know that I haven’t…” he sucks in a breath and caresses the crease between her eyebrows.

“What about Finn?” Finn was a boy she dated last year just after starting college, who turned out to be a total ass having a wife and a kid back home. 

It was a big thing for her when she found out and Clarke had shut herself off for such a long time that even Bellamy couldn’t get through. 

“We never…” she shrugs obviously at a loss of words, feeling embarrassed though for absolutely nothing. 

He makes sure she knows that so he leans down and kisses her all soft and sweet.

“That’s perfectly fine with me, princess.” he promises brushing his lips against her before speaking again “Are you sure that you want us to?”

Raising himself up on his hands he looks down at her so he can take a better grip of her feelings but when she nods almost immediately his face softens at her expression.

“I trust you.” she says and he smiles so radiantly he could shadow the sun. 

He rolls over and reaches for the wallet in the back pocket of his jeans before digging out a condom with a shy smile. 

She covers his hand with hers though and shakes her head.

“We don’t need that. I have an IUD.” he nods at that.

“I’m clean.” he promises and she can feel the blush creep up his cheeks again, probably feeling ashamed from all the threesomes he’s had and his one-night-stand past which was ridiculous “Nyko got me tested recently.”

“Oh, cause you were so sure you’d get in the sack with me?” she jokes to lighten the mood but he takes it seriously.

“No, of course not. I just-” he sighs and stares at his hand on her side, his index finger drawing circles there mindlessly “I never thought anyone would want to be with me like that ever again, actually.”

“Bellamy” she raises herself on her elbows “Why not?”

He laughs and gestures at his scarred body feeling embarrassed just like he did last night. 

She wishes he didn’t have those insecurities about his body. She promises herself to kiss every scar away later and remind him there’s nothing wrong with him.

“Look at me, princess.”

“I am.” she says stubbornly “You’re perfect.”

“That’s supposed to be my line.” he groans pretending to be frustrated when he rolls her over and once more hovers above her. 

This time his hand ends up on her legs as he gently spreads them away.

She buries her hands in his hair and smiles in reassurance when he gives her one last look asking if she’s sure.

As she kisses him, she thinks how she’s never been more certain about a thing in her life.

* * *

On the way back home it becomes apparent that his good day won’t actually last a whole day. 

He struggles really hard to get back on Stubborn and even makes a dumb joke that she fucked him so bad he couldn’t walk anymore but she could clearly see as they rode home that he was in pain. 

He slowed the horse down because the jostling worsened his state and she noticed it, so she stopped pushing Moreen so hard. 

By the time they made it back to the stables, his forehead was covered in sweat and he was panting so hard, she thought he’d pass out but he stood his ground and refused to let any of this shake him. 

On the contrary, he played it cool and once the horses were back to their places he grabbed her arm and pushed her to the wooden wall, kissing her with everything that he had left. 

“Are we really gonna have a round two with the horses watching us?” she whispers when she tugs at his shirt and he lifts her up so she can wrap her legs around his waist. 

Though he struggled to stand he wouldn’t let her take him inside and stubbornly insisted his good day is not over, even though they both knew the pain was back.

“They watched the first time too” he chuckles in her ear “I don’t think I’ve seen that expression on Stubborn before. Moreen wanted to kill me with that look.”

“That girl loves me.”

“No more than I do.” they both freeze at his words probably realizing what just happened and when he pulls back and looks in her eyes there’s fear there, but she silences it with a cup of his cheek and a kiss on his lips. 

It’s okay, she tried saying, _I love you too._

And though she never truly voiced it and he didn’t say it directly, they knew, both of them, they knew and he emphasizes it when he takes her hand and puts it over his chest like he did last night. 

That alone makes her want to kiss him again and so she does. 

They are so enwrapped in one another, they don’t hear the barn door open and someone clearing their throat.

“Dad!” she pulls away from Bellamy and he takes a step back completely confused as he struggles to button his shirt “I didn’t know you’d be back so early.”

Jake doesn’t say anything when he looks at them but his expression says it all. 

He’s not happy about what he just saw and if the way he clenches his jaw is any indication, he was going to make this hard for them. 

Jake rarely got angry with Clarke, they barely fought. 

They just loved each other very much and took care of each other in a way that made Bellamy almost envious. 

While Clarke sure was worrying over him, Jake never let himself forget she was the kid and he was responsible for her like it had happened with Aurora and Bellamy. 

It was one of the many reasons Bellamy respected Jake. That, and how much this man had helped them, how much he had learned from him, how much he had given him and his mother. 

And here he stood, kissing his daughter in all his fucked up broken glory after promising him he’ll take care of her and make sure she leaves.

“Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.” he finally speaks and Bellamy takes a step forward as if wanting to protect her which he did, but the movement made Jake even more pissed off.

“Jake, I’m sorry that you had to catch us like this.”

“You’re sorry!” he raises his voice as he takes a step forward. Their disheveled looks surely don’t help the situation, Clarke thinks and she can’t remember the last time she saw her dad this angry “ _Sorry_ , Bellamy!”

“Jake, we-”

“You promised me you’ll take care of her! That you’ll make sure she follows her dreams and you go out there and do this instead!”

“Dad, he didn’t do anything. This was both of us.”

“You better keep quiet over there, kid!” he turns to her with eyes wide and hand raised and she circles over Bellamy so that she’s no longer hiding behind him. “This is between Bellamy and I.”

“No, it’s not, since the subject of discussion is obviously me.” she crosses her arms over her chest 

“Jake, I get if you’re angry but I would never hurt her and you know it.”

“You already did and you don’t even realize it!” Jake fumes as he turns to him again. 

Clarke feels him sag and she’s aware he’s trying his best not to reach out and lean on the wall. 

The pain was written all over his face and she reaches to take his hand but he pulls it before she can.

“Dad, you can’t talk to him like that!”

“Go to the house, kid, you’re grounded!”

“Grounded? I’m nineteen and in college you can’t ground me!” she fights back but it’s clear he doesn’t care. 

Her dad is all acting out on his feelings, it’s irrational and stupid and she knows that if she just talks to him and explains how much she loves Bellamy, he’ll step back. 

But that couldn’t happen now. 

“Watch me!” he points at the door again and Bellamy clenches his fists clearly unhappy with the way her dad’s talking to her but refusing to make the situation worse than it already is. 

“Please, Jake, let’s just talk” Bellamy tries raising his arms in the air in defense.

“What is there to talk about? You ruined your life and now you want to fuck hers up and drag her down with you.”Jake waves his finger in Bellamy’s direction and Clarke’s eyes fill with tears. 

Those are the same words he told himself over and over and over again, all the doubts he had and she made sure to remind him how much it wasn’t true every goddamn day but here her dad was, stating the exact opposite, reassuring him of all the bad thoughts in his head, easing whatever small progress he had made with Gabriel.

“Dad, no!” she raises her voice now too, furious with his behavior. 

She doesn’t get this-he’s always loved Bellamy like his son, he’s helped him when he was in the hospital, walked him when he couldn’t do it himself. 

Why was he making a big deal out of this?

“Didn’t I tell you to go back home!” he bursts back and she’s about to protest when she feels Bellamy’s hand on her arm, squeezing it tightly.

“Clarke, go!” his voice is low and serious but he nods, trying to reassure her that everything’s fine and she should leave them to talk. 

As much as she hates it, she trusts him so she slowly heads outside and though she wants to stay by and try to eavesdrop she knows her dad would know and she doesn’t want to make things worse so she heads for the house but stays on the porch.

They don’t come out until almost half an hour later both of them red-faced and clearly angry but Bellamy looks exhausted too and he’s barely trailing down after her dad before he splits ways and heads for his truck.

“Go inside!” Jake scolds when he climbs the stairs but she just looks ahead at Bellamy who’s limping heavily.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Bellamy says and though she smiles briefly she turns to her father, standing in his path.

“Dad, he’s barely walking. Let him stay!” she begs but Jake simply turns to her and gives her a cold look.

“I understand that I can’t stop this and he’s right when he made it clear that this is your decision too, it is in your hands, not mine.” her chest swells with pride at the thought of Bellamy making it clear that this is not a dispute over someone owning her, that she’s her own person and she wants to run there and hug him “I may have to tolerate this but I don’t have to watch it.”

“Dad-”

“He’s not welcome at our house anymore.”

“Dad, it’s Bellamy.You love him! You’ve known him since he was a child, what the hell is wrong with you!” she bursts and stares somewhere behind him only to find Bellamy leaning on the truck door obviously debating on weather to stay and help her or head home before it gets even worse.

His face softens at her confused expression and he reaches to cup her cheek with his big hand.

“I love you, kiddo.” he says “I love you with all my heart.”

“I love you too, dad, you know it!” she reassures but he shakes his head, trying to tell her this isn’t really his point.

“It is because I do, that I want more for you. Better.” he looks at Bellamy who’s staring at her with concern, still refusing to get in the truck “And I’m sorry but he’s not that.”

He gets inside and she hears him head upstairs to his room. 

For a moment there she looks between her home and Bellamy. He smiles sadly and gives her an understanding nod before he finally climbs in the truck and takes off.

She stays there on the porch wondering how the hell this day turned out to be one of the best and simultaneously one of the worst in her life.

* * *

Clarke doesn’t hear from Bellamy that night. 

She calls him but he never picks up and she decides that’s okay, after everything that happened, he needed some time to process it all and honestly, so did she. 

He’s the one to call her the next day but she doesn’t come by his house till the weekend’s through when her dad leaves for another horse trade upstate. 

She really wanted to see Bellamy but Jake came up with these insane tasks for her to do-helping him with the cattle or riding with Moreen and Stubborn to this other farm where they had to train a few of the owner’s kids and it’s not until he finally leaves that she practically jumps in her car and drives to the Blake’s place. 

It’s Aurora who opens the door for her and Clarke will be lying if she said she’s not nervous when she sees her.

“Bellamy’s in the back, playing with Octavia and Ares.” Clarke nods and heads there, but before she can walk away Aurora takes her hand and nods at the kitchen “How about you help me make some coffee for him? He hasn’t been sleeping these days.”

Clarke swallows hard and nods in agreement, trailing after her like a puppy, not sure what to expect but having a bad feeling settle in her. 

If her dad wasn’t happy about this, would Aurora? Was the entire world against this relationship they had?

“So Bell came home really sad the other night.” she starts off as she opens the kitchen drawers and starts taking down the coffee cups. Clarke leans on the counter and grips it so tight her knuckles go white “He barely spoke two words to us.” she gives Clarke a look but she refuses to face her and instead stares down at her feet “When I went to his room to talk he tried to brush it off but I know my son.”

“He told you what happened?” Clarke finally finds the courage to ask but still can’t meet her eyes.

“He did.” Aurora puts the cups down and comes closer, reaching her hand to squeeze her arm “And I couldn’t be happier about you two.” Clarke’s head snaps up and when she sees her warm smile, everything in her relaxes and she lets herself exhale.

“Really?” Aurora chuckles.

“Clarke, my son’s been in love with you since he was a boy. I could see it in the way he looked at you.” she blushes at that but then feels Aurora’s fingers on her chin lifting her head up “I’m the luckiest mother, having such a wonderful person in my son’s life.”

“Aurora-”

“No, I mean it. Bellamy’s had a hard life and God knows it won’t get any easier from now on but with you by his side…I just couldn’t be happier.” there are tears in Aurora’s eyes now too and when she pulls Clarke to her embrace she realizes how much she’s missed having her mom in her life but how people like the woman embracing her now made reality suck a lot less. 

“I’m so glad my son got over his stubbornness and finally did something about it.”

“So am I.” Clarke admits still blushing as she pulls away. Aurora cups her face and brushes her tears away. 

She hadn’t even realized she’s been crying but it was tears of joy and relief, not sadness.

“Are you happy?”

“I am.” Clarke says without skipping a beat “I…” she swallows hard before she finishes her thought “I love him.” She finds it easy to admit it to her even though she hadn’t yet said the words to him but whens he does, she feels lighter and suddenly she wishes he was there too so she could throw herself in his arms and whisper it in his ear till her voice went hoarse.

Aurora beams at that and leans down to kiss her forehead. 

“Ah, you kids are making me emotional.” Aurora tears up now too and dabs at her eyes with her sleeve before turning around and resuming her work on the coffee which was momentarily forgotten.

“I can’t say my dad feels the same way you do.” Clarke comes by her side to help her out, busying herself with adding three spoons of sugar to Bellamy’s coffee like she knew he liked it.

“Ah, you leave Jake to me.” her head snaps at that and she gives Aurora a hopeful look “I’ll knock some sense into him.”

“But-”

“Don’t you worry, kid. I’ve known your father for a while, I know how to remind him of who the two of you are and what you mean to each other.”

What they meant to each other, Clarke thought, that’s so well-said and it got her thinking about Bellamy and her. 

When she goes outside she finds Octavia running around with Ares, throwing him a stick and Bellamy sitting on the stairs rubbing his hand over his bad leg.

“Hey.” she greets him when she settles down next to him and he beams when he looks at her.

“Hey, yourself.” without much thought he leans and kisses her almost making her drop the cups she’s carrying.

“Ugh, GROSS!” Octavia yells and they chuckle when they pull away but he keeps staring at her eyes, smiling. 

The sadness is still there, the pain always will be, but there’s something else she recognizes when she stares in his chocolate eyes-warmth, joy. 

“I’ve been waiting two days to do that.” he rubs his nose against her and kisses her once more, feeling completely insatiable. She puts the cups on the upper step and pulls closer to him. 

“You okay?”

“Oh, I’m definitely better now.” he jokes and she slaps his chest before he steals another kiss and she cups his face to stop him from moving too much so she can pepper his freckles with all her love too. 

He giggles and his warmth spreads on her face before finally, he pulls her to his chest and she rests her head over his heart. 

Octavia runs up and down with Ares, falls on the ground and then back up, rolls in the grass while the chicken walk around completely unafraid of the dog, one of them even flies on Ares’ back and he whines a little, tilting his head to Bellamy, begging for help. 

Clarke feels content like this-sitting on the stairs with the boy she loves, watching him warn his sister to take it easy with the dog, closing her eyes and listening to his heartbeat as he ran his hand up and down her back and leaned down to kiss her head every now and then. 

Her arms wrapped around him, her hand sneaking under the shirt on his back and caressing the scar there when she feels how tense he is. 

The pain never truly leaves his body and he does lean a little too much into her probably because his arm hurts, but she knows that despite the pain, the sadness, the broken hearts, the fucked up bones, the covered with scars bodies and souls, they’ll be okay.

And for the first time in a while, she believes it.

* * *

Months later she rushes to get to her room and open her old notebook so she could read the email Bellamy had send her. 

She got the notification back when her shift started but they had an emergency case coming in the ER so she never got to open it and start her day the right way. 

There’s this giddy joyful feeling inside her as she closes her door of her room with a thud, which causes her room mate and coworker Niylah to protest loudly from the kitchen, but she ignores it and drops her stuff, jumping on the squeaky bed without shame.

The other interns called their romance old-fashioned. “Long distance never works”, Niylah had chimed in. “You’re doomed”, another one of her classmates Lexa whispered in her ear when she was trying to seduce her while they were out at the bar. 

Clarke didn’t care.

She talked to him every day, they emailed twice a week, skyped at least four. The more time passed, the more in love with him she felt, something she never thought was possible.

_“Dear Clarke,_

_I’m sorry I skipped our conversation the other night. I know I always promised to not let anything stop me when it came to talking to you but I guess a surgery and two anesthetics because the first one refused to work, would do that to you.”_

She swallows hard when she remembers the call she got from Aurora a few days back, telling her his leg got really swollen this time and he couldn’t feel it at all so she and Kane drove him to the hospital where Nyko took the executive decision to perform a surgery. 

She couldn’t explain everything that was happening but it had something to do with the nerves on his back being pressed really hard and him getting an infection probably due to a spinal tap they did a week back. 

She had wanted to fly home but he stopped her when he called her after getting out of surgery. 

He insisted on her staying there, knowing she was working really hard on a brain injury case that could lead to her assisting in the operation which was a big deal. 

He’d be fine, he promised but when she skyped with him a few days later, he had seem paler than before and though he tried really hard, he fell asleep barely twenty minutes into their conversation.

_“I’m all better now.”_ it went on and she squeezed her eyes shut, knowing full well how bad of a liar he was.

_“I even got to see Gabriel today. We talked a lot, I guess I was in a mood and he complimented me on my progress._

_I think the antidepressants help too, at least to some extent. I know they can’t fix it all but they are a nudge in the right direction._

_Something he asked me stuck with me, though._

_He asked me what is there when I take off all the layers that I put on every day, what remains?_

_What is at the bottom of it all?_

_I won’t lie, I think my first thought would be to say pain but then I stopped and got to think about it._

_Pain is not who I am at my core._

_It’s something like an extra limb, a lingering thing inside me._

_Sometimes it’s a burning feeling that sets my whole being on fire._

_Other times it’s like a tidal wave, coming in harsh and ebbing away softly._

_On the best days, it’s at the back of my mind, like a tickle that never leaves you but doesn’t bother you that much either._

_On the bad ones, is the chains that keep me down, quite literally._

_But I am not my pain. It’s part of who I am but it’s not me._

_So I answered- **love**._

_He smiled knowingly and I looked away almost ashamed but I meant it._

_Deep inside me, there’s nothing but love._

_I want to say that I mean love for myself._

_But….you and I both know I have to work on that still. I’m not quite at the place where I can say I like who I am because I don’t._

_Maybe I never will but I’ve been kinder to myself and my struggles, I have been punishing myself less for the things that I can’t change and I have accepted many of them._

_But, no, princess._

_When you take down every layer there is to me, you’ll find all my love for you._

_My heart still beats the same wild way as it always had when I think about you. (and no, it’s not the arrhythmia like you and Nyko like joking)._

_I still go crazy just taking your hand in mine and wrapping my fingers around yours._

_God, Clarke, I feel like I’m floating when I hug you, on fire when I kiss you._

_Oh, how much I miss kissing you!_

_I know it’s wrong to do it like this, to write it instead of whisper it in your ear as I hold you close, yell it at the world when I pick you up and carry you inside to my room all bridal style (when my leg heals again that is), but I can’t keep it anymore-_

_Clarke, I love you._

_I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you._

_I love you with all my being, with everything inside me-with my fucked up leg and my broken fast beating heart, with my stupid half metal head, with my shaky hand that sometimes can’t even hold yours properly._

_I love you with all that’s broken and wrongfully mended inside me, with all my perfection and my flaws._

_I love you._

_And I can only humbly hope, you feel the same way._

_Please, write back soon and take me out of my misery._

_Love,_

_Bellamy_

At the time she’s reading this, they are still a month away from her coming back from her internship and she curses him for doing this when she can’t just run to him, take his cheeks in her hands and kiss him, assuring him that she feels the same way.

But when the time finally comes and she’s walking down the stairs of the airport only to spot him there waiting for her in all his Bellamy glory, with his hair a complete curly mess, his plaid shirt wrinkled from the ride here, his arms wrapped around two crutches because he still needed them to walk after the surgery, her heart bursts. 

She drops her suitcase in the middle of the lobby and runs to him.

He laughs, lets his crutches fall on the ground and wraps his arms around her tiny but strong body, knowing she’ll never drop him.

“I love you, Bellamy.” she says her voice breaking while she feels him smile as he pulls her to his chest “I love you so much!” a small laugh escapes his lips before he cups her face and leans down to kiss her. 

She raises herself on her toes and lets herself melt into him, feeling for the first time, in months,truly happy.


End file.
